Topping Hutchinson - looking at his son's account

[Lechmere]

Good Michael – you are a spoil sport.

Abbey Normal – I don’t think Hutchinson knew Kelly for three years as she moved around a lot from one side of the East End to the other. I view that as one of the least believable parts of his testimony.
Also I don’t think Romford was out of bounds for a 19 year old, still less for a 22 year old.

Rubyretro – the thing is Reg had a dad called George Hutchinson, and he claimed this dad was THE George Hutchinson and added two details (the toff and the money) which corroborate it. He did not make an outrageous claim such as that he was born on Mars.
That is why it should be regarded as evidence.
In summary you think that the connection is due to someone lying or due to false recreated memory. These are possibilities of course.

That Reg said his dad was paid an improbably large sum, and instead of simply poshish looking bloke it was someone like Lord Randolph Churchill actually make the story more credible. That is the sort of exaggeration with the telling you would expect in a verbal tradition. It would be much more suspicious if Reg had said his dad was paid a few shillings and made seen some bloke in an Astrakhan coat.

[The Good Michael]

All, Topping was 22 at the time, not 19. Young, but not a child.

Mike

[Abby Normal]

I found the baptism record for Toppy’s son, also called George Hutchinson today.
I don’t know whether it has been seen before.
It is dated 2nd April 1899 and is from Holy Trinity Church, Stepney. This was on Morgan Street E3, in what I would describe as Bow, but is quite near Mile End tube station.
Their address is however 10 Barbel Street, Westminster Bridge Road, in Lambeth SE (I was thrown for a bit thinking it said Barbel Street, Westminster).
In the 1901 census the Toppy family was living at 80 Tower Street SE (in the Southwark area).

It is interesting that Toppy’s father was called George, Toppy was called George and his eldest son was called George.
George was a popular name in this branch of the Hutchinson family.

They were at 12 Tuscan Street, Bethnal Green by 1911, but the children at that time were born in such diverse places as Westminster, Stratford, Mile End and Bethnal Green.
His wife, who he married in 1895, was from Poplar.
Bearing in mind he was from Norwood, near Croydon, and he lived off Tottenham Court Road in 1891, clearly Toppy moved around quite a lot.

He had a son called William born around 1907 in Stratford. I’m wondering whether this is William Percy Hutchinson of 16 Bonwell Street, who lost two children in the Bethnal Green Tube Disaster in 1943. One was called William George Hutchinson and was born in 1937, and may have been Toppy’s grandson. Bonwell Street was one street over from Tuscan Street.

Hi Lechmere
Nice!

What are your thoughts on the probability of a 19 year old Hutch? One who knew a prostitue for several years (which would put him at age 16 or 17 when he first made her acquaintance), lived in a lodging house and did things like travel to and from places like Romford.

[Rubyretro]

Apart from the fact that Hutchinson told Kelly he had no money on that particular morning, we cannot say that Hutchinson was in general in 1888 a beggar, or in dire straights.

He was living in a Common Lodging House, a single man, living 'hand to mouth' , obliged to go at 5 in the morning and present himself for work (with no guarantee of getting it) with a load of other desperate men, even obliged to hike to places as far as Romford in the drizzle, or 'walk about all night', and relient on prostitutes for sex. That's what I call 'dire straits'.

Not everyone in the Victoria Home was a hobo

No, but they not only had to put up with the above conditions but they were obliged to submit to the God Squad too (according to you)..

As I said, in 1901 he wasn’t a self employed plumber (I will check this) although he may have been later in life.

I don't know about 1901 -I'm pretty sure that he was later.

I wasn’t questioning Gary being an honourable man at all. However I am afraid that we know from very good and overwhelming direct evidence that plumbing apprenticeships were relatively rare by the 1880s, and a distinct minority of plumbers followed that route.

It is why I didn't base my argument on Garry's -I know what you think on the matter. Nonetheless, it may be that Garry has the best argument.

Your certainty that Toppy couldn’t have gone through a spell as a labourer or a groom, inbetween perhaps learning some plumbing through his father when he was say 12 or 14 and then returning to plumbing when his attempt to go his own way didn’t work out, is somewhat baseless

.
I won't repeat myself. It is however totally logic defying that Toppy would have learn't plumbing aged 12-14, and then lived the horrendous life of a casual labourer in a lodging house (when he could have earn't some money),
for...for...for fun ???

It just simply is not an incredible story. It is not a neat story. It would be a neat story of Hutchinson had said he was a plumber. Yet people seldom lead neat lives

.
Although they don't lead 'neat lives', they usually think that the steps that they take are logical at the time they are taking them. It is unbelievable to imagine that Toppy could have thought that leading the life of Hutch was a logical step forward in his promising young life.

I rather doubt Toppy read American newspapers and he would only have picked up street gossip if he lived in hose streets – as opposed to Fitzrovia.

The American newspaper got the story somewhere -it could have been a topical 'urban myth' of the time. he could have got gossip from any pub or shopkeeper in the East End.

Reg’s statements are evidence. You may discount it (that word again – should I say disregard) but it is still evidence.

Forgive me -I know that I'm not an intellectual- but I just can't see how the say so of some one is evidence ? So..if Reg had said that Toppy was born on Mars, would you take that as evidence that Toppy must certainly have been born on Mars ?
I'm confused.

[lynn cates]

My Lord!

Hello Ruby. The Lord Randolph business looks like a page from the SB ledgers.

Cheers.
LC

[Rubyretro]

Right, Lechmere let me give you some different possibilities to show you that Reg's story need not be as cut and dried as you think. In other words, it need not come down to Reg lied - Reg didn't lie. First , here are some options, which I'll develop afterwards :

(none of the options include 'Reg was telling the simple truth', because that is not the question that I'm replying to here).

1. Melvyn Fairclough did some research looking for the real George Hutchinson and found Reg. He then suggested to Reg that his father had been the George Hutchinson in the Ripper case :

1a) Reg didn't know anything about the case, but liked the attention and the sweetner of money if the book was a success. He spouted the fruits of Fairclough's research, knowing that what he said wasn't true.

1.b) Reg didn't know anything about the case, but liked the attention and promise of money, so said that he was aware that the witness was his father, and boned up on the case by himself.

1.c) Reg didn't know anything about the case but under the 'information' presented by Fairclough as 'fact' (his father had been the witness in the Kelly murder), and the 'suggestion' of certain facts, he then began 'remembering' things that his father had said (false memory by suggestion).

2.a) Reg was telling the truth and his father really did tell him 'the story' -but Toppy was lying to make himself more glamourous and interesting.

2.b) Reg was telling the truth. His father really did tell him 'the story' -but Toppy, being around the East End at the time, and knowing that he had the same name as the witness (and being young and frivolous) had passed himself off as the witness to bum free drinks or for a 'jape' with his mates, and had grown to sincerely believe his own lie (false memory by reinforcement of an idea through repetition).

2.c) Reg was telling the truth and his father really did tell him 'the story', however the story came from Toppy reading newspaper accounts of the murder at the time and -hooked by the coincidence of the same name-identified himself with and visualised himself into the shoes of the witness (false memory by visualisation).

First of all, if you make a brief anaylsis of the possible 'reasons' that I've given above, only two out of the six accuse Reg of lying directly.

Reg may have been perfectly sincere when recounting his story -and still have been wrong ( I hope you're reading this, Garry. You said this, and I thought about it, as I do about all your replies).

Only one option of the six accuses Melvyn Fairclough of witting dishonesty, and the same when applied to Toppy, the plumber.
However, three of the six implicate 'false memory syndrome', and their keywords 'suggestion, repetition, and visualisation'.
I can't be arsed to try and do a synthesis of 'it' here, but here are some interesting links :

https://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/...oftus.mem.html (The Formation of False Memories)

unisci.com/stories/20012/0613011.htm (False memories easily Created)

Infact, I will leave it there, for now..although I'm willing to argue it..
A clue is, it's not what a person 'remembers' 'rightly' that proves anything if they could have got the information from a source prior to their story. The giveaway is what they got wrong -repeating the mistakes of their sources. 'Lord Randolph Churchill' and the sum paid to Hutchinson, were surely wrong, and betray Reg/Toppy/Fairclough. There is no 'extra information' that couldn't have been gleaned from the Press of the time.

[Lechmere]

Apart from the fact that Hutchinson told Kelly he had no money on that particular morning, we cannot say that Hutchinson was in general in 1888 a beggar, or in dire straights.
Not everyone in the Victoria Home was a hobo.
As I said, in 1901 he wasn’t a self employed plumber (I will check this) although he may have been later in life.

I wasn’t questioning Gary being an honourable man at all. However I am afraid that we know from very good and overwhelming direct evidence that plumbing apprenticeships were relatively rare by the 1880s, and a distinct minority of plumbers followed that route.

Your certainty that Toppy couldn’t have gone through a spell as a labourer or a groom, inbetween perhaps learning some plumbing through his father when he was say 12 or 14 and then returning to plumbing when his attempt to go his own way didn’t work out, is somewhat baseless. It just simply is not an incredible story. It is not a neat story. It would be a neat story of Hutchinson had said he was a plumber. Yet people seldom lead neat lives.

I think you are over exaggerating the amount of abject poverty in England. There were pockets of it, but most working class people lived perfectly ‘respectable’ lives, did send their children to school and weren’t reliant on using them as sweated labour to supplement the family’s income. Although of course they didn’t live as comfortably as people have now grown accustomed.

I rather doubt Toppy read American newspapers and he would only have picked up street gossip if he lived in hose streets – as opposed to Fitzrovia.

But now you are suggesting that Toppy lied to Reg? (I await your reasoned response with baited breath).
Reg’s statements are evidence. You may discount it (that word again – should I say disregard) but it is still evidence.

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE]

Well yes, by 1891 he was a lodger. We don’t know that he had his own room though. And we know he was a plumber by then and not a casual labourer which indeed would have provided him with more money.
This is not very relevant as to what he was doing in 1888.

It's really quite relevant. If he was a plumber in 1891, that is only 4 years on.
So either he was an apprentice beforehand, or he at least was working with a plumber 'picking the job up' and unqualified (I think that is unlikely since he went on to be successfully self employed, as a plumber, and not a 'jack of all trades). If so, he couldn't have been a casual labourer in 1888.
Alternatively, since his father was a plumber, he could have either have learned the job directly from his father (so no being a groom, and no need to be penniless and labouring in London), or was an apprentice directly after leaving school.
Any which way that you look at it, the time scales are too short to have Toppy in dire straits, living hand to mouth in a common lodging house in 1888

By the way, I think that you should have more respect for Garry's research into plumbing apprenticeships. I think that you would agree that he appears to be an honourable man, and he has done a lot of first hand research. He probably knows rather more about Victorian plumbers and their qualifications, than we can learn by doing a few Google searches.

Did he go to school longer than most? Did he get a good education, just because he went to school at some point? I very much doubt he was taught the violin at school by the way.

As far as I can see, although children were mean't to go to school until the age of 12 (Education Act 1870, it was only made compulsory after 1880), the reality was that parents were expected to pay for the schooling, and many couldn't or wouldn't. Apart from the fact that employers saw children as a source of cheap labour, very poor people also saw children as another mouth to feed, and the potential to bring some more money into the household. Therefore, many children didn't actually stay in school (yes I do know about
Charity -my own great grandmother went to the 'Ragged School' in Mile End).
I would argue that Toppy's family didn't need to send Toppy out as child labour, and that a parent's natural desire would be for their son to 'better himself'. I don't think that Toppy learn't the violin at school ; Nor do I think that he was taught it in order to go out begging. It was probably because his parents wanted to teach him skills -and not 'only' plumbing!

As for creativity, it is Toppy’s son Reg who you are really accusing of being creative.
That is the extra factor here. In piecing together the known facts about Toppy’s life you are relying purely on the extant official records and press reports. You are discounting the evidence of Toppy’s son.

But 'Reg said so" is not 'evidence' at all ! I think that there are various different reasons why Reg might have said what he did -and he might not have lied. I said that I would answer this -but it will be a long and complicated answer. However, I've got two days off...so maybe, I'll try and give you some possibilities..

I am looking at the records and seeing if there is anything which particularly contradicts the supposed family tradition. There isn’t. In fact there are two snippets which lend weight – the posh suspect and the payment for services rendered (the amount paid isn’t the significant aspect, that can easily have inflated in the telling, it is the detail of payment being made).

WHAT ????? Lechmere, those are two 'telling' details that point to the story being false ! But that's beside the point -both stories were printed in the Press, and/or recounted as street gossip, and available to Toppy. They are
worthless.

Clearly the groom/labourer in 1888 becoming a plumber in 1891 is not great so far as corroboration goes, but it is not as if it is exactly inexplicable or an out of this world leap.

understatement ?!
It is only explicable if you put ' Occam's knife' firmly back in it's drawer.

[Lechmere]

Well yes, by 1891 he was a lodger. We don’t know that he had his own room though. And we know he was a plumber by then and not a casual labourer which indeed would have provided him with more money.
This is not very relevant as to what he was doing in 1888.

Did he go to school longer than most? Did he get a good education, just because he went to school at some point? I very much doubt he was taught the violin at school by the way.

As for creativity, it is Toppy’s son Reg who you are really accusing of being creative.
That is the extra factor here. In piecing together the known facts about Toppy’s life you are relying purely on the extant official records and press reports. You are discounting the evidence of Toppy’s son.

I am looking at the records and seeing if there is anything which particularly contradicts the supposed family tradition. There isn’t. In fact there are two snippets which lend weight – the posh suspect and the payment for services rendered (the amount paid isn’t the significant aspect, that can easily have inflated in the telling, it is the detail of payment being made).
Clearly the groom/labourer in 1888 becoming a plumber in 1891 is not great so far as corroboration goes, but it is not as if it is exactly inexplicable or an out of this world leap.

Real creativity is required to make Hutchinson a viable suspect.

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE=Lechmere;188772]Ah – clearly then his wife got baptised at the same time as the son.

Rubyretro

The notion that he would have had to have trained for years in order to have described himself as a groom holds even less water than the fake need to be apprenticed for years in order to describe himself as a plumber.

I didn't say that he had to have trained for years, I just wanted to make the point that for the witness to have described himself as a 'groom' was a real job description. For someone of Toppy's background -having been to school longer than most, with a father that had a trade, it is unthinkable that he would have left school to become a groom rather than be encouraged to learn a trade himself. Infact, he did follow his father into plumbing.

It is simply untrue to think that most sons followed their father’s trade. He certainly struck out from home to become a lodger off Tottenham Court Road by 1891

.
Maybe not -however we know that is exactly what Toppy did do. I pointed out that he became a loger -with his own room, not in a common loging house-and with enough money to afford amusements and 'courting'.
So not casual labouring then.

Plumbers weren’t even lower middle class. Tuscan Street wasn't remotely a middle class street. He shared the house in Tower Street with another family. He was then incidentally counted as plumber who worked for someone else, rather than a self employed plumber

.
Ok, I shouldn't have said that. I only mean't to compare his prospects and living conditions with the desperately poor people that we meet when reading about the Ripper.

.

The representation of Hutchinson is in my opinion just that

– And in my opinion, it is a sketch from life.

Yes, creativity is required to fit Toppy in with Hutchinson at the Victoria Home, but then creativity is required for virtually anything to do with this case.

We don't need to use 'creativity' for the facts known about Toppy's life, nor for the few facts known about Hutchinson's. The
'creativity' is only needed if we want to shoehorn Toppy into Hutch, since none of the facts of either man's life fit the other.

[Lechmere]

Ah – clearly then his wife got baptised at the same time as the son.

Rubyretro
The notion that he would have had to have trained for years in order to have described himself as a groom holds even less water than the fake need to be apprenticed for years in order to describe himself as a plumber.
It is simply untrue to think that most sons followed their father’s trade. He certainly struck out from home to become a lodger off Tottenham Court Road by 1891.
Plumbers weren’t even lower middle class. Tuscan Street wasn't remotely a middle class street. He shared the house in Tower Street with another family. He was then incidentally counted as plumber who worked for someone else, rather than a self employed plumber.

On Hutchinson sketch:
Yes many sketches were accurate but then they are usually head and shoulders sketches of the subject carried out at the inquest. The representation of Hutchinson is in my opinion just that – a representation. He is a background figure in a bigger scene. It is highly unlikely that an artist would have accompanied any journalists who tracked him down for an interview.

Yes, creativity is required to fit Toppy in with Hutchinson at the Victoria Home, but then creativity is required for virtually anything to do with this case. I would suggest that considerably less creativity is required to fit Toppy in as Hutchinson than to make Hutchinson the murderer.

[Rubyretro]

Lechmere, that's all very interesting, however :

Having George as a common family name is totally superfulous. It's not as if the name was 'Zachary' or 'Gale'.

Being an ex-Toppyite, I can tell you that a researcher (David Knott), who was in contact with Toppy's family even stated that Toppy was in the East End at the time of the events -not an island in the Hebrides, but a place teeming with thousands of people -and he did do other jobs. I have no reason to argue with this, and I believe it.

Still, Hutchinson the witness was described as 'a groom now working as a labourer'. I have always been very interested in the groom job and have quite a few documents on 'Life of a Victorian Groom', whether working on a stud, driving the goods at a London market, or working at 'The Big House'. It is clear that Groom was a proper job description not just an odd job that anyone could do (why Hutch gave it as his own 'proper job' description).

Proper 'job description' it might have been, but it was still a lowly, poorly paid job, and grooms usually began as children aged about 10. We know that Toppy, son of a plumber, brought up in a house in leafy Norwood (in expansion -so plenty of work for plumbers), was still in school at aged 12.
I seem to remember he played the violin. I would suggest that Toppy's upbringing was quite privileged compared to all those East End urchins that we see in the photos- since his father had a Trade, he might even be considered lower middle class. I would also suggest that Toppy's father, as a parent, would have been ambitious for his son to grow up with a Trade that provided a reasonable income -and what would have been more natural than to help and encourage him to become a plumber like himself ? And that is exactly what happened. It beggars belief that Toppy's father would have kept his young son in school, and then pushed him out to work as a groom, as many a working class family might have had to, to bring in money or have one less mouth to feed at home. There is nothing whatsoever to hint that he ever did, or that Toppy ever worked as a groom.

Toppy was only 19 at the time of the events (wasn't he 18, even, at the time of the first murders ?). It appears totally unlikely, knowing what we do of his background and his future life, that he would have ended up in a common lodging house, frequenting prostitutes (Hutchinson claimed to have known Kelly for a few years), and fighting for casual labouring jobs with desperate immigrants just off the boat.

Yes, there might of been a 'family row' that made Toppy strike out on his own -but that is totally 'creative' and we know no such thing. The fact that Toppy followed his father into the same job, argues against it, even. Today, boys striking out on their own can get 'benefits' from the State -they couldn't then, and I feel that someone would not choose the life of Hutch the witness, unless they had no choice.

The life of a casual labourer must have been unbearably tough and precarious, and why a literate teenager who probably already held the rudiments of plumbing, and would need to find himself in such a position is beyond me. Infact, from what we see of Toppy, he turns up
lodging in a house with some policemen (?) a bit later on, with money in his pocket to go to the music hall, and enough to begin 'courting' his future wife.

We do have a sketch of Hutch the witness, and since we know that he met the Press, and that
sketches in the Press drawn from life were very accurate, we can compare it with the photo of Toppy -albeit at an advanced age. There are absolutely no similarities between the two.

The whole Toppy as the witness argument involves inventing creative reasons for explaining the inexplicable. We don't need to place Toppy in the East End to have a case -we need to prove that he was a groom, he lived in the Victoria Home, he frequented prostitutes and he
physically resembled the witness.

To put Toppy in the shoes of Hutch is like banging a square peg into a round hole.

[The Good Michael]

Remember, Topping married Florence Jervis in Mile End in 1898. I think the records are reflecting them as a couple.


Mike

[Debra A]

She also had the same parents as Toppy's wife and her father had the same occupation.

Strange one.

[Lechmere]

I have just looked at the baptism record again and I noticed something that is rather curious.
There was another baptism the same day, 2nd April 1899 at Holy Trinity, Stepney.
The person baptised was called Florence Beatrice Jervis.

Strange fact no 1 – she lived at the same address as the Hutchinson’s – 10 Barbel Street, Westminster Bridge Road, SE.
Strange fact no 2 – she shared the same Christian names as Toppy’s wife – Florence Beatrice.
Strange fact no 3 – she was 20 years old when she was baptised (born 29th March 1879).