Cutbush and Cutbush?

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Thomas Taylor Cutbush [THC's father] was a cad and a bounder. He deserted his wife Kate [nee Haynes] and young child in November 1866 and on 22nd January 1867 arrived in Wellington, New Zealand, where on 10th December 1867 at St Johns Presbyterian Church he bigamously married Agnes Ingles Stoddart, spinster, age [F]='full, over 21']. Agnes lied about her age. She died on 17th July 1870 aged "20 years and 6 months" [Wellington Independent, 19th July 1870].

TTC wasn't one to let the grass grow under his feet. Two months later, on 24th September 1870, he married at the Office of the Registrar, Wellington, Miss Francis Augusta Evelyn Watson of that city [Wellington Independent, 10th October 1870]. They lived in a freehold property on Tasman Street, Wellington.

On 27th April 1871 TTC appeared before magistrates. J. Rigg, the Town Board Clerk, was claiming £1.10s in unpaid rates. TTC paid up.

On 5th May 1871 TTC was objected to "as not being entitled to have their names retained on the list of voters for the city of Wellington".

On 3rd January 1872 Francis Augusta Cutbush gave birth to a daughter.

On 7th May 1872 TTC's name was again objected to on the voters list because he had "left the colony".

That's all I can find on TTC [AP has a trace to South Africa], except to say that in the 1881 census his wife Kate Cutbush listed herself a widow, understandably in preference to being described as deserted—

14 Albert Street, Newington, Surrey. John K. Hayne, 71; his wife, Anne, 75; daughter, Ellen, 37; daughter, Kate, 33 [widow]; two lodgers; and last but by no means least—son, Thomas Cutbush, 15.

Regards,

Simon

[Debra A]

I thnk that your earlier postulation to me -- I think -- that the family may have preferred to describe themselves as widowed, for respectability's sake, is the most likely.

Yet, I think it unlikely that the 'Uncle' would volunteer that this madman was his nephew when he was no such thing. Since the crushing weight of the documented primary evidence points to it not being true, then I subscribe to the provisional theory that Macnaghten exploited the co-incidence of the names for his own purposes

I made a mistake in the last post, it was Cutbush's doctor who thought his mother was a widow..the same doctor who examined Collicott at Holloway too, but yes, I think he was protecting the family name somewhat.

The exploitation of names is an interesting idea, especially as in 1891 Cutbush was on trial at Lambeth for the jobbing incidents and I am probably missing something major here..but, Lloyd's weekly in 1891 were hinting at the same accusations against Cutbush that the Sun were in 1894 ie Cutbush being involved in the East end murders, so why did Scotalnd Yard not feel the need to cover things up then?

[Jonathan H]

I thnk that your earlier postulation to me -- I think -- that the family may have preferred to describe themselves as widowed, for respectability's sake, is the most likely.

Yet, I think it unlikely that the 'Uncle' would volunteer that this madman was his nephew when he was no such thing. Since the crushing weight of the documented primary evidence points to it not being true, then I subscribe to the provisional theory that Macnaghten exploited the co-incidence of the names for his own purposes

[Debra A]

For example, that Charles sincerely 'thought' he was related to Tom and so voluntered this alarming (mis)informtion from retirement -- why would Mac disbelieve such a claim?

But aside from the issue of whether or not the two were related (which they weren't), didn't Macnaghten also get some of the the basic facts wrong of a story he was supposedly refuting?
The Sun clearly states that Cutbush's father left the family home when Thomas was young and the Australian and New Zealand press seemed to have picked up on this also in their reports of February and March of 1894, contemporary to Macnaghten's report, even knowing that his father was a New Zealand colonist.
Why does Macnaghten say Thomas's father was dead? This theory seems to stem from the 1891 accounts when Cutbush was arrested for the jobbing incidents and his legal representative claimed his mother was a widow.

[Jonathan H]

The word 'theory' is not meant perjoratively, simply technically.

Eg. Perhaps Macnaghten, who was there and knew Charles, was right, and the family trees, bizarrely, are wrong.

Or, there is some, forever missing piece that makes sense of both opposing positions?

For example, that Charles sincerely 'thought' he was related to Tom and so voluntered this alarming (mis)informtion from retirement -- why would Mac disbelieve such a claim?

That would make Mac, a primary source, wrong -- but neither a fool nor Machiavellian -- and Deb and Robert correct, as much later secondary sources analysing an alternate, slightly earlier primary source.

In other words an historical theory can be overwhelming in the marshaling of evidence but not absolutely definitive, as pieces remain missing.

This is true of science too. Gravity is not a fact. It is a theory which all the empirical evidence supports.

[Stephen Thomas]

If the theory of Deb and Robert that Charles Cutbush and Thomas Cutbush were, in fact, not related at all.....

Debs and Robert don't deal in theories, Jon

They deal in facts.

[Debra A]

Hi Jonathon,
I question that it's a theory...but who knows these days.

[Jonathan H]

If the theory of Deb and Robert that Charles Cutbush and Thomas Cutbush were, in fact, not related at all, then we are back in that weird twilight zone about Macnaghten, one in which we are left with nothing certain except his Cheshire Cat Grin hovering disembodied over the entire mystery.

I once wote that the late John Updike's characterisation of President Reagan could apply to this police chief: like God, you were never sure what he knew: everything or nothing?

If 'nothing', then he prepared a Report for the Home Sec. because he feared that this madman being alluded to in 'The Sun' might evolve into a major tabloid feast, if it came out that Cutbush -- allegedly the Fiend -- was the nephew of a retired police superintendent. No wonder such misplaced hysterics was shelved into the archive?! [Did not Anderson write that the un-named Macnaghten was apoplectic just over some threatening letter ...?]

If 'everything', then Mac is playing a shell-game of now you see it, now you don't. He ruthlessly exploited the coincidence of the name 'Cutbush' [with Charles safely retired] perhaps to lock in support from the Liberal govt; that the jackal press were about to insinuate a police cover-up of one of their own -- knowing that this was untrue -- and so the Cabinet better fall in line to quash this story.