Topping Hutchinson - looking at his son's account

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE]

No Mike, wrong.
The press alluded to his "military appearance", and asked him about his trade. And yet, nothing about Hutch being fresh from the army.

Well, I agree with Mike that Hutch may very well have been in the army -I think that it fits very well. I think that an ex-army man would also 'fit' the Ripper. (This is only one possible theory of course).

Still, Toppy only had his 22nd birthday after the Double Event (I think),
and he would have been far too young to have done a stint in the army.

Hutch was not described as being 'fresh from the army', and he says that he knew Kelly for 3 years, in which case he would have to have left the army some years before. This would make him closer to 30 in my view.

It is interesting that it was very usual to enlist under an alias at the time.
If this were the case for Hutch, it would explain why he is very difficult to find
(that and the fact that he very likely didn't come from the London area).

[Fisherman]

And it goes on ...? Why? It has been established that Toppy COULD have become a plumber as the result of - for example - taking a test, there is nothing at all proving that he WAS a plumber in the autumn of 1888, there is enough of a time window allowed for him to have engaged in grooming and/or labouring etc.

This means that the problems that have been said to attach to these things can be overcome. After that, no further discussion is of need. It would only revolve about the built-in probabilities that Toppy went the A or the B way, and it would only have SOME posters murmuring about "almost totally improbable" and OTHER POSTERS carrying on about "completely viable and uncontroversial" and ALL POSTERS being utterly unable to prove either point.

The unsurmountable obstacle was never an unsurmountable obstacle. Full stop. That´s all we need to know. So let´s move on.

The best,
Fisherman

[DVV]

No Mike, wrong.
The press alluded to his "military appearance", and asked him about his trade. And yet, nothing about Hutch being fresh from the army.

Take this from me (and be free, like a bird in the tree - time to rocksteady).

[The Good Michael]

..If Toppy was Hutch and was VISIBLY fresh from the army, we would have known it.
Seems you're about to change Toppy's life into a fanciful novel.

Like we know everything else about Hutchinson? The idea of being in the army isn't as fanciful as him being a murderer. That idea is fancy of Dunsanian proportions.

Mike

[DVV]

True, but I expect more resistance on your behalf, mate !

[Lechmere]

Life isn't fair!

[DVV]

DVV
So by extension it’s nonsense to discuss suspects?
I don’t think it’s necessarily nonsense to compare likelihoods even when they are in absolute terms unprovable.

Nope, you did not get me.
Since we all very well know that we can't prove who the ripper was, it's nonsense - and quite unfair - to say : my minor point (ie: Toppy) is more likely to be proven than JtR identity.
But btw, I'm afraid you'll never prove Toppy was Hutch, for he was not - no doubt.

[Lechmere]

Mr Wroe
I am well aware exactly what the Worshipful Company of Plumbers is and used to be and their lack of clout (particularly outside the City of London) which is why I have repeatedly said that bodger plumbers would have still been prevalent after 1891. As indeed they are to this day.
I have not said that the apprenticeship system rolled over and died in the 1880s. I have referred to the apprenticeship system for plumbers only. In an earlier post on a different thread (which you may have missed) I gave an explanation for the temporary breakdown of the apprenticeship system in the London area during the late Victorian period.
From the contemporary sources that someone else unearthed (sorry I don’t have a note of his name to hand) it is clear that the apprenticeship system for plumbers in London did suffer an almost complete break down in the 1880s.

DVV
So by extension it’s nonsense to discuss suspects?
I don’t think it’s necessarily nonsense to compare likelihoods even when they are in absolute terms unprovable.

[DVV]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPgYiwlGrog

"I'm the plumber-ber-ber-ber-ber...."

[Garry Wroe]

The Worshipful Company of Plumbers introduced a test that they wished to encourage plumbers to undertake and to encourage potential employers to insist upon their plumbers being suitably qualified. The test clearly did not require anything like seven years training.

You may be right, but as there were very few apprentice plumbers it is exceptionally unlikely that this would apply to Toppy wherever he lived.

If he hadn’t passed the much more basic plumbers test by 1888 and at that moment did not intend to go back to plumbing (which he probably had started to engage in with his father at a younger age) then why would he define himself as a plumber?

To begin with, Lechmere, the Worshipful Company of Plumbers was not some all powerful governmental body armed with legislative clout. It was nothing more than a lowly trade association. And the ‘test’ to which you have referred was not a substitute for a formal apprenticeship, it was merely a process which ensured that all members met a minimum standard of competency.

Astonishingly, you also seem to believe that the formal apprenticeship rolled over and died at some point in the mid-1880s. Sorry, but such a notion is a million miles away from reality. The irrefutable truth of the matter is that the apprenticeship scheme was still thriving in the mid-1970s when I was indentured.

But tell me, Lechmere: if any old Tom, Dick or Toppy could wake up one morning and become a tradesman on a whim, why would anyone have bothered to undergo the years of hardship that an apprenticeship entailed? What would have been the point? Are you aware, for example, that the Victorian apprentice worked unpaid? He or she was fed, clothed and provided with shelter. Beyond that, the only reward was the acquisition of skills and knowledge. So again, why would anyone have subjected themselves to seven years of such deprivation had it been possible to attain tradesman status merely by the acquisition of a set of second-hand tools?

Am I suggesting that there were no bodgers in the 1880s? Not in the least. There were blaggers aplenty then as now. But there were regulations and those regulations were enforced. Had this not been the case, the Fenians would have had no need of bombs. They would simply have set themselves up as gas fitters and blown London off the face of The Earth courtesy of 'faulty' workmanship.

[DVV]

That's it. A nonsense. Since nobody will ever prove who was the ripper.

[Lechmere]

In that case I will simplify it for you...
There is a better case for Kelly's Hutchinson being Toppy, than there is for Kelly's Hutchinson being the Ripper.

However having said that I think there is no realistic likelihood that Kelly's Hutchinson was the Ripper.

[DVV]

In my opinion the bits and pieces of evidence and filling in of blanks for Toppy being Kelly's Hutchinson add up to a whole lot more than the bits and pieces of evidence and filling in of blanks that make Hutchinson the Ripper.

Is that a splendid sophism or a sheer absurdity ?
Let me think about....

[Lechmere]

DVV
I would suggest that being a groom requires a lot less skill and experience than being a plumber.
But yes I suspect it will never be substantiated that Toppy was or wasn't in the East End in 1888.
In my opinion the bits and pieces of evidence and filling in of blanks for Toppy being Kelly's Hutchinson add up to a whole lot more than the bits and pieces of evidence and filling in of blanks that make Hutchinson the Ripper.

Books are written trying to provide a factual basis for King Arthur (for example), based on multiple sources, bits and pieces of evidence and filling in of blanks. I would suggest that if the Toppy stuff was put together in the Arthurian context, then it would be accepted that history had found its man (Kelly's Hutchinson).
(For the literalists out there, I used Arthur as an example of a historical figure of unsure provenance.)

[DVV]

Hi Lechmere

If he hadn’t passed the much more basic plumbers test by 1888 and at that moment did not intend to go back to plumbing (which he probably had started to engage in with his father at a younger age) then why would he define himself as a plumber?

Well, had he passed the basic grooms test ?

I see nothing remarkable about this as a hypothesis

I see nothing substantiated either.