Topping Hutchinson - looking at his son's account

[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]

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]

Life isn't fair!

[DVV]

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

[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]

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).

[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

[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).

[Archaic]

Under-trained Plumbers A Threat To "Sanitary Security"

Hi guys. I'm just going to dip one toe in this Toppy argument...

Just wanted to say that having read through LVP periodicals on a wide range of subjects, I've come across many references to the danger of badly-trained or under-trained plumbers. These references even occurred even in the late 1890's and early 1900's. Some of them were quite long articles written in tones of outrage, sarcasm and disgust.

The outrage was fueled by a growing awareness of the importance of hygienic plumbing in stopping the spread of dangerous diseases such as Typhoid, Cholera and Dysentery. Household drains were often poorly designed, and under-trained plumbers were frequently blamed for hooking up the pipes in improper configurations that caused them to leak or made it impossible for them to drain properly. It seems to have been a serious national issue. The apprentice system was said to be highly prone to abuse, permitting incompetent plumbers to shirk the requirements and rapidly go into business for themselves.

The article attached is from 1904, so despite efforts to enact new plumbing regulations in the interest of public health, it continued to be a problem well past the 1880's.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Archaic]

Dunsanian To The Max

That idea is fancy of Dunsanian proportions. Mike

Wow, Mike, "Dunsanian"... what a great literary term! - And quite obscure, which makes it even better!

You definitely get extra points for that one.

I wonder if there's anyone in Kazakhstan besides you who knows what it means?

Best regards,
Archaic

[The Good Michael]

Actually, Lord Dunsany is more popular than Shakespeare in Kazakhstan.


Mike


Maybe I lied

[The Good Michael]

, nothing about Hutch being fresh from the army.

Nothing about Toppy being a murderer either. Sorry, but the Hutch argument needs the legs of a millipede to be able to stand. And who said anything about Hutch being 'fresh' from the army. Not me. And as you Hutchinsonians like to proclaim, he wasn't even checked out by the police. They saw the blood on his cuffs, dismissed it as being a shaving accident, took his story, and sent him on his way clutching a fiver.

Army service IS a possibility regardless of the what spews forth from the Hutchinson camp.

Mike

[Lechmere]

Oh if I must elaborate DVV...

“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.”

I would say that proposing of provenance for Hutchinson as Toppy should require no more weight of evidence than coming up with a Ripper suspect (eg Hutchinson). You should use the same benchmarks.
It is a slightly interesting exercise establishing the credentials of Toppy and recreate his life from the meagre sources available. He was a ‘nobody’ and as such will have left very little trace. To his family of course he wasn’t a nobody, but to the historical record he was.
In my opinion there is a fairly compelling case that he was Kelly’s Hutchinson.

Not least because the signatures are obviously similar. If the two different signatures (the first one from the witness statement and any from the census form) were compared when writing a cheque (if anyone writes cheques anymore) for example, then they would be passed. Or when you vote by post you have to provide a specimen signature which is checked against one that accompanies the ballot. The two signatures would easily pass that verification.

I think Toppy can’t have been in the army as he will have to have served at least 4 years.
The military bearing thing will have just meant he stood straight and was slim.
The fact that some soldiers were not tall but stout is absolutely irrelevant. The phrase military bearing had a meaning – and that was tall, erect and slim.
That is another reason why it is quite possible that Lewis saw someone else altogether.

The sketch of Hutchinson with a bowler type hat and a moon face was a very indistinct and almost certainly not done from life. The good likenesses were drawn at inquests and so forth. The sketch (from Penny Illustrated?) is clearly just representational.

If Hutchinson wasn’t Toppy and he was older, then he could have been in the army, and been a groom. But there isn’t that much to being a groom, and it is the sort of thing he could have readily learnt by a number of means.

I would suggest that no one will ever get any further with the Hutchinson Ripper case as I can’t see than any other evidence will come to light to ’finger him’.

Archaic came up with some interesting further proof that bodging plumbers long proliferated after 1891, which common sense told us anyway.

[The Good Michael]

Lechmere,

You seem to be taking a page from the 'Toppy couldn't have been a plumber' book. First, I believe enlisted men had to do 7 years service (I could be wrong), plus there was reserve service, Could toppy have served only 1 or 2 or 3 years? There are plenty of dischargees who have done so. Could Toppy have been in the navy at a young age? Plenty of young boys in the navy. I was only suggesting a possibility about where a guy could gain a military experience. I was only in the Air Force for 4 years, 2 months, 20 days and 18 hours, but I still make hospital corners on my bed, fold my underwear into 6 inch squares, and many people ask me if I'm in the military. The funny thing is, I hated the military and found it to be only valuable to me because it paid my education and the library on base could get anything I wanted.

Back to the facts: they are that many things are possible before one should consider someone as a slayer and skinner and parts remover of human beings. That is absolutely bug nuts to me,

Mike

[Garry 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) …

I wish I could say that that this is evident from some of your recent posts, Lechmere.

… which is why I have repeatedly said that bodger plumbers would have still been prevalent after 1891. As indeed they are to this day.

So you are of the opinion that the majority of today’s plumbers are untrained incompetents? Perhaps you’d care to adduce the evidence for such?