Topping Hutchinson - looking at his son's account

[babybird67]

Toppy's father may have said to the ne'er-do-well, "You want to work with horse? Go ahead, you'll see that it ain't so easy, and then maybe you'll see that the plumber's trade, though devoid of glamor, is a stable and necessary one."

But Mike, surely a groom's employment is much more "stable"!

[Ben]

Fisherman,

In case you didn't pick up on Mike's subtext, what he's really saying, in essence, is that your desire to engage me in long-winded posting wars all the time and "take that fight" is ultimately damaging to Team Toppy. He's obviously very concerned about this, and for good reason, since he's cautiously implored you along these lines about a dozen times now. Happily, you and I both know you never had any intention of taking his advice, so it's looking like we're on for another Hutchinson "battle".

You seem to know a lot more about Hutchinson than the rest of us, Ben; What exact "degradation" and "squalor" are we speaking of here?

I'm talking about the squalor and degradation that we know characterized lodging houses such as the Victoria Home, which, considering they were located in a vicinity known for its "vicious and semi criminal" element, is hardly an exaggeration. I'm not sure how such a thing can be quantified to the extent of "exactitude", but I'm sure if you read Jack London's "People of the Abyss", in which the Victoria Home if clearly referred to, if not by name, you should be left with the correct impression, i.e. one of squalor and degradation.

Would you not say that since we know that Hutchinson said he gave Kelly money from time to time - and rather substantial money too - that he may perhaps not have lived such a squalid life?

I've emboldened the operative phrase: "Hutchinson said".

I'll be honest, I'm not prepared to accept anything as fact on the basis that "Hutchinson said". Hutchinson also said that he noticed the colour of a man's eyelashes despite passing him in darkness for a fleeting moment. Makes me wonder if maybe - just maybe - he could have been lying, and I entertain the same concerns viz a viz his "gave her a few shillings" claim.

If he lived in the Victoria Home, he was in a relatively dire pecuniary predicament, otherwise he wouldn't have been living there. Surely nobody's seriously doubting this?

Thanks to Sams articleS (itīs plural), we know that the occupation was crowded with common labourers before and AFTER 1886, Ben. You are bound to realize that once you read the material.

So why didn't this "common labourer" reap the benefits of becoming a phoney plumber when it was easy to do so? Or for an even more pressing question; why become a common labourer pretending to be a phoney plumber at all, especially when his parental connections bestowed upon him vastly better than average chances of becoming a REAL plumber? Even if we go crazy and assume he was amazingly chuslish, and spurned these opportunities, how did he suddenly rectify matters and become a bonafide REAL plumber, in his mid-to-late twenties, with no probation/apprenticeship period, AFTER the regulations had been tightened?

It was easy to become a plumber prior to 1886, especially if his dad was already in the trade, so why didn't he?

It was difficult, if not impossible, to become a plumber after 1886 (when regulations had been tightened) if the plumbing aspirant had no apprenticeship and was beyond the age at which apprenticeships are normally given. So how did Toppy manage it?

These questions are not easily answered if Toppy was the 1888 Hutchinson. If he wasn't, those questions don't apply. If he wasn't the witness, there's no longer any problem. It would mean Toppy became a plumber at the earliest opportunity - probably in his teens - and continued to be one for the rest of his life.

Hallelujah, Ben - does that involve the judgement of renowned document examiners like Frank Leander...?

It also involves the judgement of renowned experts such as Sue Iremonger, who saw more than a couple of emailed images, but please let's have that argument again...

Hi Mike,

Toppy's father may have said to the ne'er-do-well, "You want to work with horse? Go ahead, you'll see that it ain't so easy, and then maybe you'll see that the plumber's trade, though devoid of glamor, is a stable and necessary one."

Let's be circumspect here; how deluded must Hutchinson Jr have been to believe for one second that venturing out for a horse-related career in the worst grotspot in London might not have put the pennies in the piggy-bank? I appreciate that such a mentality could occur today when the prospect of a truly destitute lifestyle was not so apparent; I can picture a strictly modern-day "Daddy, I don't want to join your reputable accoutancy firm in Sydney. I want to surf with Great Whites instead", but I can't see how it can be compared with 1888. All but the most ludicrously hedonistic and delusional of youngsters would have seized those rare benefits of an easy way in during times of such hardship.

And sorry, but no, it wasn't easy to flip from one occupation to another at the drop of a hat. If you've properly understood Gareth's articles, you'd know that the very opposite was true of the plumbing trade after 1886, when a hypothetical Hutch-The-Witness was supposed to have suddenly joined the trade after tight restrictions for entry had been imposed, and when he was at an age when unrealsitically short apparenticeships were still offered.

Best regards,
Ben

[DVV]

Hi all,

had Toppy a sister in Romford, whose sink was blocked around November 1888...

Amitiés,
David

[Sam Flynn]

had Toppy a sister in Romford, whose sink was blocked around November 1888...

Not sure, Dave - because we don't have the census info for that year. However, his father came from Chelmsford, the nearest big town (c. 20 miles from Romford). His father would also have been 61 or 62 years old in 1888, if he were still alive. Toppy had already lost his mother by the time of the 1881 census, when he and his sister lived with their father in Eltham (also about 20 miles from Romford, if not just under).

[DVV]

Thanks Sam,

as I said several times, the (possible)'Romford connection' could well do more 'for' Toppy than signatures comparison or the so-called family tradition.

Honestly speaking Sam (please don't take the end of the sentence as some kind of "in cauda venenum"!).

Amitiés,
David

[Ben]

Hi Dave,

Toppy's sister, Emily Jane, lived in Lee at the time of the murders.

She married James Knott in Lewisham in 1886.

The couple's first child, Gertrude Florence Knott, was born on 21st March 1887, at 47 Ronver Road, Lee (London SE12)

The couple's second child, Lillian Jane Knott, was born on 22nd April 1889

In 1891 she was recorded in the census as living at 59 Summerfield Street, Lee.

Toppy's father, George Sr, was also living in Lee at the time of the 1891 census. He died there on 29th November 1895.

Hope this helps,

Ben

[Observer]

Hi Ben

Where was the couples second child born? Lilian Jane Knott that is.

all the best

Observer

[Ben]

Hi Observer,

She was also born in Lee, as were all six of her siblings.

Best regards,
Ben

[Fisherman]

Ben writes:
"In case you didn't pick up on Mike's subtext, what he's really saying, in essence, is that your desire to engage me in long-winded posting wars all the time and "take that fight" is ultimately damaging to Team Toppy."

As far as Iīm concerned, Ben, Team Toppy is home and dry. Therefore, I see little reason to believe in any "damage". The only damage around to pich up on lies on other hands.
But that is not what we should be discussing here - we should be discussing Hutchinsons social status, and I think you are making things a bit too easy for yourself when you seem to claim that ALL people in the area we are speaking of are people who were extremely poor and run down. Therefore, by reasoning, Hutch must have been living in squalor, according to you. You even bring up "People of the abyss" to clinch this thesis of yours.

But we are not speaking of a collective of people here. We are speaking specifically of Hutchinson, who was an individual. And of his economical status we know very little, and what we DO know is tightly knitted to the exact day when he turned up at the police station.
He was out of work then; that is if we are to believe what he says, and that is one thing that you seem to WANT to believe, though you claim that we really should not believe ANYTHING he says - such equations are awkward ones, Ben.
But letīs assume that he WAS out of work - if he was, that does not tell us for how long he had been ut of work. Nor does it tell us what he had done prior to that situation. Nor does it tell us where he had lived prior to the Victoria home - that was by no means a lodging at the very bottom of the scale, for that matter.
Have a look at other individuals that pass by as we learn about Whitechapel and Spitalfields - the man Marshall saw with Stride, for example, was described as a respectable character, something like a clerk, just to mention one everyday member of that society. Of course, Hutchinson calls himself a labourer, but we do not specifically know what he did and how he earned his living, do we? So letīs not jump to conclusions about any squalor surrounding his personal welfare as long as you have nothing to bolster it with, Ben.

Also, the same lack of evidence applies when you hint at the possibility that Hutchinson could have embarked on a carreer together with his father, as a plumber.
How much do we know about the state of his fathers affairs at the time? How do we know that it allowed for taking aboard a family member and feed him? How do we know that the two got along well enough to form such a companionship? How do we know that it was not his fathers refusal to keep and feed Hutchinson that drove him to the East End?
The same answer applies in all these cases - we donīt know.

Finally, as for:

"It was difficult, if not impossible, to become a plumber after 1886 (when regulations had been tightened) if the plumbing aspirant had no apprenticeship and was beyond the age at which apprenticeships are normally given. So how did Toppy manage it?
These questions are not easily answered if Toppy was the 1888 Hutchinson. If he wasn't, those questions don't apply. If he wasn't the witness, there's no longer any problem. It would mean Toppy became a plumber at the earliest opportunity - probably in his teens - and continued to be one for the rest of his life."

There are two ways in which to address this question, Ben, as you will realize. The first one is to note that the "tightened regulations" seemed to be very hard to instigate, since we have Samīs articles telling us that the efforts on behalf of the organized plumbers were useless to a large extent. Therefore, many a "plumber" active in that period of time would not have been a plumber at all - regulations or no regulations. Possibly, Hutchinson may have started on a plumbers education, only to give it up for a period of time (and a number of reasons could have lied behind such a thing) - only to take things up again at a later stage and complete that education. Once again, we simply donīt know.
That is the first way to answer your question.
The other way, and the one that applies very much in my case, is to realize that there MUST be an explanation to why Hutchinson said that he was a groom and a labourer out of work, just as there MUST be an explanation to how he became a plumber later in life and just as there MUST be an explanation to the fact that he was staying at the Victoria home in the autumn of 1888. And why is this? It is because as far as I`m concerned, Toppy signed the police report and was the Dorset Street witness, and therefore we know that there WILL be explanations to these points. And indeed, just as I propose, the explanations could be quite trivial and anything but far-fetched.

Fisherman

[Ben]

As far as Iīm concerned, Ben, Team Toppy is home and dry. Therefore, I see little reason to believe in any "damage". The only damage around to pich up on lies on other hands.

Well, no offence, Fisherman, but it should be astoundingly clear that others on your side don't share that view, and tend to regard your self-confessed willing to engage in lengthy "fights" as a bit of a liability to the Toppy cause.

But that is not what we should be discussing here - we should be discussing Hutchinsons social status, and I think you are making things a bit too easy for yourself when you seem to claim that ALL people in the area we are speaking of are people who were extremely poor and run down.

Not all people in "the area", necessarily, but certainly those living in squalid conditions in the larger East End lodging houses, otherwise you'd have to embrace the faintly ludicrous idea that he made a beeline for these hell-holes despite better living conditions being readily accessible. The believe who lived in these lodging houses did so through lack of better options, and if you read the relevant chapter on lodging houses in People of the Abyss, by Jack London.

And of his economical status we know very little, and what we DO know is tightly knitted to the exact day when he turned up at the police station.

But we're also told that he was a temporarily unemployed labourer who formerly worked as a groom by trade, but we've recently learned that he could have avoided that particular grotspot by following his father into a trade whose entry regulations were very relaxed prior to 1886. It meant that he had an opportunity to get ahead of the phony plumbers who were secretly only labourers by using his connections to become a geunine plumber. It would mean that those 1886-introduced regulations would not have affected him. It would have been plumbing business as usual while all the fakes are turfed out.

Alternatively, you can try to get round the problem by speculating that Toppy was a plumber in 1888 but simply pretended he wasn't when communicating with the police. Not sure why he'd do that, but suggestions are most welcome.

The only speculation that doesn't get round the problem is the one that has Toppy stampeding towards poverty when he clearly had other options, economically and domestically, before somehow, by some miracle, managing to become a genuine no-bullsh1t plumber in his early-to-mid twenties, when we know the regulations had been tightened; we know that he couldn't have served anything like a proper apprenticeship for the job between 1888 and 1891; and we know that apprenticeships were offered between the ages of 14 and 21.

Nor does it tell us where he had lived prior to the Victoria home - that was by no means a lodging at the very bottom of the scale, for that matter

It wasn't far off, Fisherman. I'd rather doss down there than Crossingham's, for example, but if you actually study the contemporary sources, you'll discover that the men who actually experienced the Victoria Home in Commercial Street found the living conditions deeply undesirable, thus rendering any suggestion that someone would live there for the hell of it, despite other options, implausible in the extreme.

I don't know why would mention the "respectable appearance" of Marshall's man. What are you trying to convince me of here? We have no idea where Marshall's man lived, and we certainly have no evidence that he was an "everyday member of that society". On the contrary, an everyday member of that society would more closely resemble a docker or a labourer - someone like Marshall himself.

How do we know that it was not his fathers refusal to keep and feed Hutchinson that drove him to the East End?

By all means posit the existence of some family feud if you wish, but if that's the case, the chances of Toppy becoming a plumber independently of his father (and with little or no apprenticeship) is rendered even less plausible. It wouldn't have driven him to the East End, since there were other family members besides the father who could have accommodated him. Unless you want to argue that they all spurned him?

Possibly, Hutchinson may have started on a plumbers education, only to give it up for a period of time (and a number of reasons could have lied behind such a thing) - only to take things up again at a later stage and complete that education. Once again, we simply donīt know

In which case, he'd be a "plumber by trade, now working as a labourer" in 1888, not a groom. Indeed, no references are made to plumbing in his police statement or any press report.

The other way, and the one that applies very much in my case, is to realize that there MUST be an explanation to why Hutchinson said that he was a groom and a labourer out of work, just as there MUST be an explanation to how he became a plumber later in life and just as there MUST be an explanation to the fact that he was staying at the Victoria home in the autumn of 1888. And why is this?

Indeed, there MUST be explanation for all of those things. And by far the most logical explanation to all of them is that Toppy was not the George Hutchinson who signed the police statement. That way, all of those problems are resolved. He was living in the West End in 1891, and if he was working there, it would indicate the ownership of a certificate. It would mean Toppy apprenticed to become a plumber in his teens, as did the vast majority of those entering a trade at the time. The moment you make Toppy the witness, all the above objections remain, and I dispute very strongly that your "trivial" explanations are even remotely applicable.

Best regards,
Ben

[Jane Welland]

Stereotyping (Memory to follow)

Hello All

I’ve been thinking about this, and about this debate amongst other things, and this is what I reason thus far in the present context:

Stereotyping – is something we all recognise, but I wondered if we could articulate what it is, actually, and where it comes from – it has to originate from somewhere, after all. These are general points, but certainly applicable to Astrakhan Man – which are:

A stereotype can be defined as an exaggeration of a generalised set of given behaviours. Behaviours can be dress (and thus appearance) speech (denoting ‘otherness’) custom etc. If we take Mr Hutchinson’s clearly well-to-do Jew, we might reasonably believe him to be a stereotype, in this case mainly because of his dress, which is very specifically described in detail.

The point about this description in this respect is that it cannot have appeared to be very unusual or out of the ordinary – because it was acceptable to the police and to the populace in general as communicated by the press. Nobody stood up at the time and cried - ‘Oh Mr Hutchinson! Whatever Next?? Your Mr Astrakhan is straight out of a Penny Dreadful!’ (although he may well have been, in addition..).

This tells us that in general terms, the appearance of this ‘toff’ Jew was de rigeuer, at least to an appreciable extent, in that social and temporal context. Mr. Astrakhan’s must have been common enough, there and then, to warrant no particular comment. The Stereotype - as it surely was - was acceptable and accepted: which of course is the nature of the beast.

We cannot therefore discount the possibility of Mr Astrakhan being a legitimate sighting based on solely his appearance, because for that to have been so, contemporary wealthy Jews must really have looked like that to some extent - However ridiculous he appears to us today.

The behaviour of Mr Astrakhan falls similarly. He is suspicious, obviously, because, first and foremost, he is a Jew – and his behaviour as described in the statement, scowling at Hutchinson as he walks past, should come as no surprise to us, because it certainly didn’t to his contemporaries.

So, what do we have? A wealthy Jew, looking and behaving just as your contemporary stereotypical Jew should.

Anything else aside, that’s the number one reason for suspicion in my view, and why I’ve decided that I don’t believe in him. Far from being ridiculous, I see Mr Astrakhan as just too convenient – too perfect for the job by far.

Any thoughts?

Jane x

[Ben]

Very reasonable points there, Jane.

On the subject of the unusual appearance of the Astrakhan man, it may have been accepted - albeit briefly - on the assumption that, whoever the Whitechapel murderer was, he must have been someone incredibly conspicuous and unusual. In other words, a description that would otherwise be considered outlandish might just have been entertained as plausible, given the context.

All the best,
Ben

[Jane Welland]

Ah, but you see...

..I do see what you are getting at, Ben, but is that view - that the Whitechapel Murderer was in some way 'special' and thus likely to be so in appearance too - a retropsective perspective?

I think Mr. Astrakhan must in fact have been a recognisable figure (as a stock figure) to have passed without so much of a flicker of shock at the time.

In fact, maybe that's one of the reasons that Abberline accepted the statement as reliable - not because he had described anyone out of the ordinary - but because the person he had described was in a social class that he could easily accept as being responsible for the murders - murders, after all, of Gentile women, however low down on the social ladder they were.

I think you have to look at this one (not trying to teach you how to suck eggs, so to speak) also in the context of the murder of Stride, and the graffito on Goulston Street.

You have there the murder of a Gentile woman outside a Jewish club and a graffito which allegedly points the finger at the Jews. Well, would it be going too far to wonder (about many things here, but sticking to the present point) whether the Jews might have been in Abberline's mind already?

Of course, if one disbelieves Astrakhan man then.....

I'll PM you with something relevant to this.

Jane x

[The Good Michael]

You have there the murder of a Gentile woman outside a Jewish club and a graffito which allegedly points the finger at the Jews.

...by promoting pro-Jew sentiment, I may add.

Mike

[Ben]

Many thanks for your PM, Jane, to which I've just responded.

You have there the murder of a Gentile woman outside a Jewish club and a graffito which allegedly points the finger at the Jews. Well, would it be going too far to wonder (about many things here, but sticking to the present point) whether the Jews might have been in Abberline's mind already?

Absolutely, and as I outline in my PM, it may well have been the killer himself who planted them in his mind some weeks prior to 12th November.

All the best,
Ben

PS. Correction to a sentence I goofed up rather spectacularly in my post to Fisherman:

The people who lived in these lodging houses did so through lack of better options, as you'll discover if you read the relevant chapter on lodging houses in People of the Abyss, by Jack London.