Cutbush and Cutbush?

[GBinOz]

I can’t think of any reason why he would have knowingly made this incorrect link so how did he come to make this error?

Hi Herlock,

Given the number of other errors that he made, might the reason just be that he was incompetent?

Cheers, George

[Debra A]

Hi Debra,

Thinks for that information. Even after your excellent research I still couldn’t help wondering if there was some kind of difficult to trace familial link between the two that hadn’t been picked up on (you can tell that I’m not a genealogist) because I found it difficult to see how Mac could have made such an assumption. On reflection though perhaps it’s not so surprising - someone makes the error, Mac hears of it and it’s then assumed true and no big deal is made of it so it’s never questioned. We all know how something that isn’t true can become accepted until someone like you decides to check. No doubt next week I’ll be doubting this possible explanation.

Do you know what type of business his cousin had on Aldgate High Street? We know of two jobs that Thomas had but I’m assuming that there was no possible connection?

Hi Herlock,
Sorry for the late reply. I was reminded of an old JTR Forums thread where I discovered an early fictional treatment, a story named "The Vampire" where the murders were attributed to a medical student in a book titled "The Devil's derelicts". The author had the surname Harcourt, reportedly a bit of a bounder, and for some reason the papers, when reporting on his past exploits, described him as a nephew of Sir William Harcourt, a prominent figure of the time. Both men denied the relationship because there was no such relationship. Perhaps when rare names cropped up there was an assumed relationship? It's a common occurrence.
Anyway... Fasham Venables, Cutbush's cousin had a woolen wa[rehouse] at 34 Aldgate High Street. Interesting considering Catherine Eddowes claimed she knew who JTR was and was arrested a few doors away from these premises!

[Lewis C]

Hi Debra,

Thinks for that information. Even after your excellent research I still couldn’t help wondering if there was some kind of difficult to trace familial link between the two that hadn’t been picked up on (you can tell that I’m not a genealogist) because I found it difficult to see how Mac could have made such an assumption. On reflection though perhaps it’s not so surprising - someone makes the error, Mac hears of it and it’s then assumed true and no big deal is made of it so it’s never questioned. We all know how something that isn’t true can become accepted until someone like you decides to check. No doubt next week I’ll be doubting this possible explanation.

Hi Herlock,

I have researched my own genealogy, and there are some places in my family tree where I can't trace it back any further than my 2nd great grandparents. Everyone is related, so if no relationship was found between the Cutbushes, that would indicate incomplete family trees. However, it seems they weren't closely related, as Mac thought they were, so I doubt that Mac's belief was based on a more complete knowledge of their family trees than what we have. I think this is just yet another thing that Mac was mistaken about.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

Extensive research showed that Charles Henry Cutbush and Thomas Hayne Cutbush were not related in any way at all. This was confirmed by an extensive family tree featuring generations of Thomas H Cutbush's family, drawn up for a legal inheritance case and preserved at the National Archives. I have a copy of it in my garage somewhere, it's huge in size!

Macnaghten was also mistaken when he wrote that Thomas's father was dead, we know that he had in fact deserted his wife and two sons and sailed to New Zealand where he married bigamously. The British press reported this fact in 1891 and also the Australian and New Zealand press were reporting in 1894 that "Jack the Ripper was thought to be the son of a New Zealand colonist" How could the papers, even the overseas ones get something right that Macnaghten got wrong in his account of Cutbush?

It was AP's belief that Thomas H Cutbush might be the illegitimate child of Charles Henry Cutbush but there is no evidence to support this or any reason to believe the two families even knew each other.

One thing that did come up in later research was that a relative of Cutbush's had business premises on Aldgate High Street, a couple of doors down from where Catherine Eddowes was arrested the night before the morning of her murder.

Just to pick up on something mentioned earlier in the thread that Charles Henry Cutbush's son may be the man in Cane Hill asylum in 1909- The Charles Cutbush in Cane Hill asylum actually died there in 1909 whereas I believe Charles Henry's son, Charles/Charlie Stokes, was alive well in to the mid 1900s.

Hi Debra,

Thinks for that information. Even after your excellent research I still couldn’t help wondering if there was some kind of difficult to trace familial link between the two that hadn’t been picked up on (you can tell that I’m not a genealogist) because I found it difficult to see how Mac could have made such an assumption. On reflection though perhaps it’s not so surprising - someone makes the error, Mac hears of it and it’s then assumed true and no big deal is made of it so it’s never questioned. We all know how something that isn’t true can become accepted until someone like you decides to check. No doubt next week I’ll be doubting this possible explanation.

Do you know what type of business his cousin had on Aldgate High Street? We know of two jobs that Thomas had but I’m assuming that there was no possible connection?

[The Rookie Detective]

Hi Herlock,

Extensive research showed that Charles Henry Cutbush and Thomas Hayne Cutbush were not related in any way at all. This was confirmed by an extensive family tree featuring generations of Thomas H Cutbush's family, drawn up for a legal inheritance case and preserved at the National Archives. I have a copy of it in my garage somewhere, it's huge in size!

Macnaghten was also mistaken when he wrote that Thomas's father was dead, we know that he had in fact deserted his wife and two sons and sailed to New Zealand where he married bigamously. The British press reported this fact in 1891 and also the Australian and New Zealand press were reporting in 1894 that "Jack the Ripper was thought to be the son of a New Zealand colonist" How could the papers, even the overseas ones get something right that Macnaghten got wrong in his account of Cutbush?

It was AP's belief that Thomas H Cutbush might be the illegitimate child of Charles Henry Cutbush but there is no evidence to support this or any reason to believe the two families even knew each other.

One thing that did come up in later research was that a relative of Cutbush's had business premises on Aldgate High Street, a couple of doors down from where Catherine Eddowes was arrested the night before the morning of her murder.

Just to pick up on something mentioned earlier in the thread that Charles Henry Cutbush's son may be the man in Cane Hill asylum in 1909- The Charles Cutbush in Cane Hill asylum actually died there in 1909 whereas I believe Charles Henry's son, Charles/Charlie Stokes, was alive well in to the mid 1900s.

Exquisite, sublime and just another level entirely.

This is how to formulate a post.

Just brilliant!

[Debra A]

According to Debra Arif, Chris Scott, Roger Palmer and Robert Linford (to name but four) they weren’t. That’s good enough for me Chris…I suspect that it will be good enough for you too.

Hi Herlock,

Extensive research showed that Charles Henry Cutbush and Thomas Hayne Cutbush were not related in any way at all. This was confirmed by an extensive family tree featuring generations of Thomas H Cutbush's family, drawn up for a legal inheritance case and preserved at the National Archives. I have a copy of it in my garage somewhere, it's huge in size!

Macnaghten was also mistaken when he wrote that Thomas's father was dead, we know that he had in fact deserted his wife and two sons and sailed to New Zealand where he married bigamously. The British press reported this fact in 1891 and also the Australian and New Zealand press were reporting in 1894 that "Jack the Ripper was thought to be the son of a New Zealand colonist" How could the papers, even the overseas ones get something right that Macnaghten got wrong in his account of Cutbush?

It was AP's belief that Thomas H Cutbush might be the illegitimate child of Charles Henry Cutbush but there is no evidence to support this or any reason to believe the two families even knew each other.

One thing that did come up in later research was that a relative of Cutbush's had business premises on Aldgate High Street, a couple of doors down from where Catherine Eddowes was arrested the night before the morning of her murder.

Just to pick up on something mentioned earlier in the thread that Charles Henry Cutbush's son may be the man in Cane Hill asylum in 1909- The Charles Cutbush in Cane Hill asylum actually died there in 1909 whereas I believe Charles Henry's son, Charles/Charlie Stokes, was alive well in to the mid 1900s.

[Herlock Sholmes]

IIRC correctly, Wolf's book about Cutbush makes that suggestion, that Mac's belief that the Cutbushes were related may have motivated him to defend Thomas.

For anyone interested in this book, its contents are posted in the other Ripper forum, or at least they were at one time.

It is Lewis.

https://www.jtrforums.com/forum/ripper-books/ripper-books-aa/ripper-non-fiction/27440-jack-the-myth-a-p-wolf#post27440

Sadly AP Wolf (real name Paul Webb) died in 2024 aged 73.

[Lewis C]

Is there a scenario whereby MacNagthen incorrectly believed that Cutbush was related to Chief Superintendent Cutbush?

Hence the bid to try and push Cutbush out of the limelight, by submitting a random list of (arguably) nonsense suspects?

IIRC correctly, Wolf's book about Cutbush makes that suggestion, that Mac's belief that the Cutbushes were related may have motivated him to defend Thomas.

For anyone interested in this book, its contents are posted in the other Ripper forum, or at least they were at one time.

[Herlock Sholmes]

thanks, dosnt sound like much if any reason to dismiss him.

It’s not Abby.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Abby,

In the MM he says that little reliance can be placed on his mother and aunt because they were of an excitable disposition but I’d suggest that would hardly have been surprising given that they lived with someone like Cutbush. Also that the knife found on him was purchased two years after the murder which is weak to say the least. It’s certainly true that that knife was purchased whilst he was on the run but it doesn’t mean that he couldn’t have owned a knife prior to that. He also adds this:

”The statement, too, that Cutbush "spent a portion of the day in making rough drawings of the bodies of women, and of their mutilation," is wholly based on the fact that two drawings of women in indecent postures were found torn up in his room. The head and body of one had been cut from some old 'fashion plate', and legs were added and made to represent naked thighs and pink stockings.”

Why would we assume that he would have retained every sketch that he’d made over a period of time?

He also said:

”The statement in the issue of 15th Feb. that a man in a light overcoat had been seen talking to the woman, whose dismembered torso was found in Pinchin St, (and that a light overcoat was among the things discovered in Cutbushs' house) is hopelessly incorrect.”

Old Mac does appear keen to dismiss Cutbush.

thanks, dosnt sound like much if any reason to dismiss him.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Is there a scenario whereby MacNagthen incorrectly believed that Cutbush was related to Chief Superintendent Cutbush?

Hence the bid to try and push Cutbush out of the limelight, by submitting a random list of (arguably) nonsense suspects?

I suppose that the likeliest explanation is the most prosaic one Chris; which is often the case. That someone, for whatever reason had thought or suspected a relationship between the two and Macnaghten had heard this and assumed it true. And between 1891 and 1894 it hadn’t been mentioned again and so no one had any reason to find out the truth. Then when The Sun articles appeared and Mac wrote his Memorandum he just repeated what he’d heard three years previously.

Of course, just because I can’t think of a better explanation it doesn’t mean that there couldn’t be one. Macnaghten can’t have had any reason to invent this ‘relationship’ though.

[The Rookie Detective]

Is there a scenario whereby MacNagthen incorrectly believed that Cutbush was related to Chief Superintendent Cutbush?

Hence the bid to try and push Cutbush out of the limelight, by submitting a random list of (arguably) nonsense suspects?

[Herlock Sholmes]

hi herlock
do we know why mm discounted cutbush? does he give reasons?

Hi Abby,

In the MM he says that little reliance can be placed on his mother and aunt because they were of an excitable disposition but I’d suggest that would hardly have been surprising given that they lived with someone like Cutbush. Also that the knife found on him was purchased two years after the murder which is weak to say the least. It’s certainly true that that knife was purchased whilst he was on the run but it doesn’t mean that he couldn’t have owned a knife prior to that. He also adds this:

”The statement, too, that Cutbush "spent a portion of the day in making rough drawings of the bodies of women, and of their mutilation," is wholly based on the fact that two drawings of women in indecent postures were found torn up in his room. The head and body of one had been cut from some old 'fashion plate', and legs were added and made to represent naked thighs and pink stockings.”

Why would we assume that he would have retained every sketch that he’d made over a period of time?

He also said:

”The statement in the issue of 15th Feb. that a man in a light overcoat had been seen talking to the woman, whose dismembered torso was found in Pinchin St, (and that a light overcoat was among the things discovered in Cutbushs' house) is hopelessly incorrect.”

Old Mac does appear keen to dismiss Cutbush.

[Abby Normal]

I just find it a bit of strange one Tani. Maybe I’ll have a read round on the subject as it’s been a while.

hi herlock
do we know why mm discounted cutbush? does he give reasons?

[Lewis C]

No relationship between the two can established according to those I mentioned Lewis. I wouldn’t expect one of them to get it wrong so all four seals it for me.

Two of them are sadly no longer with us. Debra occasionally posts but Roger is a regular so I don’t know if he’ll see the thread and would want to add something? I don’t know if it’s all possible that there might have been some connection between the two which the records don’t show (I’m not a genealogist)

Thanks, Herlock.

It would have to be a fairly close relationship to be significant, close enough that they were aware of it at the time. They would have been distantly related, both probably having William the Conquerer and Alfred the Great as ancestors, and probably having a far closer relationship than what those common ancestries would indicate. Maybe for the purposes of this case, Macnaghten thinking that they were related is significant even though he was mistaken.