I encourage you to hang out here a bit, but understand that there are those who only seek to further a theory and don't seem (in my mind) to want to get at the truth.
Okay, then, here's a statement of fact. UK apprenticeships in the Victorian era (and indeed, well into the 1960s) began at the age of fourteen and almost always concluded on the boy's twenty-first birthday. This was the point at which the boy not only became a man, but a tradesman. Such were the physical, temporal and economic hardships of serving one's time - and I know because I did it - that the trade became a badge of honour, a way in which the working-class male distinguished himself from his unskilled compeers. According to Reg, Toppy was a plumber (a tradesman) who was seldom, if ever, out of work. And yet the George Hutchinson was consistently referred to as either an unemployed labourer or former groom, but never a plumber. From this, one conclusion is inescapable: whatever else he might have been, the George Hutchinson was neither a plumber nor any other tradesman. Accordingly, we may deduce on an evidential basis rather than the oft cited hidden agenda that Hutchinson and Toppy were different men. And if you disagree - fine. But please, search the municipal archives for some tangible evidence rather than simply slurring the intelligence and integrity of those who happen to disagree with your Toppy-related conclusions.
Regards.
Garry Wroe.
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