Topping Hutchinson - looking at his son's account

[Fisherman]

Ben (to Lechmere):

"Good. In which case, you would also appreciate that "momentary knee-tremblers" tend not to consist of "having a song" about plucking violets from parental burial locations. Whatever the nature of Blotchy's business, a knee-trembler was clearly not on the cards, whereas casual companionship evidently was."

But Cox did not stand outside Kellys room listening to the song between 11.45 PM and 1 Am, did she? Let´s check things out:

"As I went in she sang "A violet I plucked from my mother's grave when a boy." I remained a quarter of an hour in my room and went out. Deceased was still singing at one o'clock when I returned."

A-ha! She heard Kelly commence to sing at 11.45, she says nothing about 12 o clock, when she went out, although she adds that Kelly was "still singing" at 1 AM when she returned home.
Correct me if I am wrong here, but could it not be that she sang at 11.45, served Blotchy the punter (if that he was) between 11.46 and 11.55, wawed goodbye to him and took a look at the coins he had left in her hand, and became so happy about it that she took to singing once again? It is not as if the singing and Blothcy´s presence must be interconnected for some magical reason, is it? Nor is it in any fashion the more probable deduction, is it? No, it is UNRELATED to the singing as far as we can tell, and therefore we do not know at what time Blotchy left, just as we don´t know what he had been doing there - although a reasonable guess would be that he bought and payed for sex.

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

No, no, no, Fisherman what gut wrenching, blindingly obvious, grating, catastrophic, nauseating repellent nonsense, everyone involved in Ripperology since the last five years and who has researched the facts and read the books will confirm that of she was singing with Blotchy at 11.45 pm, he will not have left her company before 1 am - in other words until she had completed her recital, as they were not having a mere knee trembler. He will not have left until he had allowed her to quaff his ale, finish singing and pass out. Then and only then will he have departed, and left the door ajar.

Mr Ben – Kelly was seen as drunk by Cox (although I hazard she didn’t chemically analyse her blood) – exactly how drunk and incapable is unclear. All we can clearly say is Kelly was drunk.
Roughly two and a half hours later – not one hour, I notice how you regularly massage your timings to suit your story –she seemed spreeish. Which I take to mean half cut, and we have no way of knowing whether she had in fact drunk in the meantime.
This aspect of Hutchinson’s story is not implausible –it just isn’t Mr Ben, no matter how many adjectives you use.

[The Good Michael]

will confirm that of she was singing with Blotchy at 11.45 pm, he will not have left her company before 1 am -

It was the one song as well. It had 4,275 verses and was composed to be the English equivalent to the Rig Veda, But Fisherman has to go and make up some nonsense like, because she wasn;t heard between 11:45 and 1 am, she may have been doing other things. How dare you think, you bastard! If it wasn't in the highly coveted Hutchinson suspect books, it didn't happen.

Mike

[Fisherman]

Lechmere, Mike!

I should have known better than to try and pull that off right under your noses. Goes to show how desperate one can get.

Anyway, sorry about that!

The best,
Fisherman
much ashamed

[Ben]

Hi Richard,

Yes, it was Farson.

http://wiki.casebook.org/index.php/Mary_Ann_Cox

I don't need another "source" to demonstrate the niece's version is complete fiction. Its content should speak for itself.

Best regards,
Ben

[Ben]

“Two words, Ben: "quite possibly". Sip them, taste them, contemplate them, and then tell me what they mean.”

You didn’t say it was merely “quite possible” that she was badly drunk, Fisherman. You asserted quite unambiguously that she was “badly drunk” and “quite possibly heading for worse, given the beer blotchy supplied”, not “may have” supplied, but actually supplied according to you. The only link in the chain that you expressed any degree of doubt over was the bit about her “quite possibly” heading for worse. Everything else you pretty much accepted as a given.

Contrary to what you might think, I’m not raising these glaring inconsistencies out a desire to be “childish” or to belittle you in any way, but to highlight the pitfalls of being so eager to do “battle” with familiar combatants that you forget to acknowledge points of agreement. The more you challenge my conclusions with regard to the likely extent of Kelly’s drunkenness, the more you undermine your own published theory. Don’t trap yourself into contradictory positions out of solidarity with other posters who usually unite with you against Ben the common enemy.

Perplexingly, you wrote:

“Look here, Ben: I said that Blotchy supplied beer”

Followed almost immediately by:

“Where do I write that Blotchy gave beer to Kelly?”

Try two sentences ago!

“And you think that means that I MUST abide by these things and not question them and not look at the alternative possibilities.”

Not at all, but it does become very tedious when I express agreement with one aspect of your conclusions, only to receive long posts of unnecessary naysaying in return. We both agree that Cox’s impression of Kelly’s drunkenness was likely to have been correct. We both agree that she was likely to have become more drunk after drinking from Blotchy’s ale pail, and we both agree that her likely state of intoxication afterwards is not compatible with the "spreeish" condition described by Hutchinson two hours later.

“When I "plunge", Ben, I do so with the intention of every once in a while returning to the surface again, to inhale fresh oxygen and see what is happening up there.”

But whatever’s "happening up here", you’ll be disagreeing with me. It doesn’t matter if I’m disagreeing with or endorsing your conclusions; you seem to find any excuse to challenge what I’ve said. This is the only consistent element to your contributions. On this occasion, it is supreme folly to disagree with me because in so doing, you are downplaying one of the core tenets of your “different day” theory, and I don’t think this is particularly fair on the people who complimented you on your article in the immediate aftermath of it being published. Some people believed your conclusion to be viable for the reasons you outlined in the article. If you then downplay one of those reasons and concede that it may be a complete non-issue after all, the overall premise has one less leg to stand on.

It would be akin to a Daddy Long-Legs lopping off one of its own wings or legs. It didn’t fly very well before, but now it’s just making things worse.

What makes this so silly is that I never insisted on my suggested version of events as fact, just the most likely explanation on the basis of the evidence.

“Can you see anything that points in any other direction in Tom´s case? I can´t.”

So you think he forgot all about Dew’s memoirs because he was so distracted by modern literature making a link between Hutchinson and Lewis’ man? It’s possible, but I would give him a little more credit than that, personally. Do you really think that the people who complimented your article were ignorant about Dew’s memoirs until you mentioned them?

“The power of the muddled day suggestion lies in itself, and it would have had the same impact if you had been the one that presented it. Then again, I was the more likely one to bring it up”

But I was the one who brought it up, here:

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?p=149106&highlight=walter#post149106

This was on the 30th September 2010, and my exact words were:

“Potentially revealing, in this regard, is (sic) Walter Dew's suggestion that Hutchinson got the wrong day!”

You then told me not to listen to Dew because he got things terribly wrong and made lots of mistakes. And then you wrote an article, very shortly afterwards, endorsing his suggestion as the correct one after all.

As for your Cox-related observation, it is not impossible that Blotchy departed between “11:46 and 11:55” (I love the specificity of these suggested timings!), although she was quite meticulous in her observation concerning entrances and departures from the court as we learn from her other evidence. Additionally, if Kelly and Blotchy’s transaction was intended only to be a brief bit of business, why would she launch straight into sing-song as soon as the pair entered the room? Whatever she planned to do with Blotchy later on, it is clear that her first priority was to “have a song”, which is not consistent with a desire to do the dirty and get rid of him quickly. For these reasons, I consider it far more likely that Blotchy was still ensconced within the room when Mrs. Cox left the court.

But let’s not argue forever about this, because it undermines your published theory.

Best instead to return to the topic, which is “Topping Hutchinson”.

"This aspect of Hutchinson’s story is not implausible –it just isn’t Mr Ben"

Not impossible you mean, Lechmere. It certainly isn't plausible. Ask Fisherman, who used this implausibility to argue the case for a date-befuddlement with regard to Hutchinson.

All the best,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Ah - you didn´t see the difference, Ben. Pity, that.

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

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.

[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).

[Debra A]

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

Strange one.

[The Good Michael]

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


Mike

[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.

[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]

[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]

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.