Topping Hutchinson - looking at his son's account

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
To me it is obvious that the lighting was sufficent enough for Hutch to have made a observation, for it goes without saying that if the area was very dimly lit, the police would have been been reluctant to accept such a description, they were not complete idiots.
Dare I say it Hutchinson was born in 1866, and grew up with the lack of lighting, he was used to it, and further more conditions had improved as he aged, as with all of the population would have found.
When he suggested for Eg, a red hanky, he would have believed it to have been one, not invented it.
Regards Richard.

[The Good Michael]

From Daily Life in Victorian England by Sally Mitchell, page 60:

"In earlier times, workers entering crafts or skilled trades usually served a formal apprenticeship....Although some apprentices were still bound or articled during the Victorian period, the system was not as universal or formal as it had been."

So, a boy must serve a 7 year apprenticeship? Apparently it wasn't mandatory (but we thinkers knew that already) and by the LVP, somewhat informal. We also know that apprenticeships didn't have to last 7 years and it was upon the master to decide. If many other craftsmen could play fast and loose with the apprenticeship concept, why not Topping's dad? Why not indeed? Point, set, and match to Toppy.

Cheers,

Mike

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
What is all this about Hutchinson [ alias Topping] being a plumber anyway.
In 1888, he was a labourer, and a groom, he at a later date ventured into the plumbing business, he still had a lot of years to live you know..
48 years ago I was a wages clerk, followed that by measuring inside legs at Hepworths men tailors, followed by a selection of jobs on building sites[ where the money was] and even dug up the roads with the water company.
And for many years now , have worked for one of the big three bookmakers, just goes to show how many different, and varied jobs a man can take on.
Just like our good old George.
Regards Richard.

[David Knott]

Apprenticeship was certainly not the only route to becoming a plumber.

Evening Institutes, including in the East End, held plumbing courses.

David

[The Good Michael]

And for many years now , have worked for one of the big three bookmakers, just goes to show how many different, and varied jobs a man can take on.

Richard, no way! It is impossible for someone to become a plumber without 7 years apprenticeship ending at the age of 21. There is no possible way that people switched careers. I've done it several times, but I'm sort of a Renaissance man.

Cheers,

Mike

[richardnunweek]

Hello Mike,
Ok I accept that, so what if Hutch had finished his apprenticeship in 1887 at the age of twenty one, that is assuming Topping was the man in question, and had fallen out with his father, and assumed other jobs during 1888, that does not interfere with what is known.
Regards Richard.

[The Good Michael]

Richard,

I wasn't serious. Of course there were several avenues a man could take to become anything. We don't even need to have a falling out to show that.

Cheers,

Mike

[David Knott]

A few more observations, which hopefully demonstrate that the whole apprenticeship issue is a red herring.

Toppy's uncle John, like Toppy's father George, followed in their father's footsteps and became a plumber. However, on the 1841 census, when he was about 21 years old, he was a painter, not a plumber. By 1851 he was noted as a plumber, and in 1861 a master plumber (his son being noted as a journeyman plumber)

Toppy's own father is noted as a labourer on the 1841 census when he would have been about 15.

And finally (given that the witness GH gave his occupation as labourer) there are over 700 people on the 1881 census giving their occupation as plumber's labourer!

David

[Ben]

Firstly, I did not pester Magyann - I provided a reason for her to be careful before buying your stuff, Ben. Secondly, the ill-feeling you are speaking of has been about for the longest time, and you have done nothing to improve on it - on the contrary.

Again, Fisherman, you are a boastful, vainglorious liar with a potentially dangerous fixation with me. Here you are, yet again, attempting to derail a thread about Reginald Hutchinson's account with irrelevant details over how bright the light are in Dorset Street Kelly’s blood and Tabram’s stab wounds, and that is utterly consistent with some sort of Ahabian vendetta you have against me, and this after threatening to have no more exchanges with me. You know such claims are futile, Fisherman. I have a hypnotic power to command your obedient latching on to my every word. Like a well-trained poodle, you follow me around message boards with this ludicrous lobbyist campaign to recruit followers to the anti-Ben cause.

It’s fun. I’m flattered by the attention. I’m flattered that I’m of such a burning fascination to you that you could stoop to photographing your own son in Kelly’s death pose and posting it on the internet, if it means attempting, with embarrassing futility, to score those desperately cherished points over me.

“Once again, neither you nor me could know if there was any blood DIRECTLY behind the neck, since the area was not visible.”

The tiniest area would not have been visible, but considering that there was blood directly behind it, and directly in front of it on Kelly’s face, and considering that the area we’re scrutinizing was the region immediately to the right of her neck, I thought I’d hazard this crazy guess that the supposedly unseen region might also have been bloodied, since the chances of it remaining unscathed in that regard were effectively zero, given it’s proximity to y’know, lots of blood. This is a screamingly obvious commonsense deduction, but you chose to resort to your unusual strategy of turning into some sort of stamina war, and you saw fit to start the ball rolling again here.

You have taken the lead in derailing this thread out of an obsession with scoring points over me. Everyone else came here to discuss Toppy and Reg Hutchinson, but here you are, expecting all other contributors to ditch the issue, and suddenly became fascinated with your imaginary triumphs over me. Don’t you wonder why your fellow Toppy theorists often tell you to reel yourself in and have a break? It’s because they don’t want some ponderous, inarticulate Ben-botherer losing their side credibility, and rightly so.

“If it was not the size of the entrance holes that made him speak of a pen-knife, then what was it?”

Elsewhere he used the term “pocket knife”, and I’m afraid your on to yet another losing wicket if you think Kileen was referring to a modern day penknife of the order that you might find attached to a bottle opener-corkscrew and other useful goodies. If the knife moved around inside the wound, that could easily lead to uncertainty as to the type of weapons responsible for that wound.

But now it’s time to have some fun with gas lamps:

The lamps that would be considered powerful by our standards were the ones that were introduced, in their most primitive form and sold throughout Europe in 1891, and were powerful chiefly because they were gas mantles, not open flames. Yes, you could achieve a powerful open flame by lighting a huge bonfire, but there weren't powerful street gas lamps in 1888. It's takes only a little common sense to fathom that I was talking about street gas lamps in the quote you mentioned, since this was the topic under discussion.

Thanks to a source you provided, we learned that the streets would have been dark in 1888 on account of the poor lighting, and my suspicion is that you would have withheld that if you’d actually digested that detail, since you would rather suppress a source that supports my contention rather than provide it in the interests of general enlightenment. So no, there is no chance that the lamp in question could have been one of the "powerful" 800-watters you were talking about. It wouldn't have been a "commercial enterprise" lamp either since Hutchinson claimed that he stood against it the lamp itself, rather than a wall, and an impoverished local East End pub forking out shed loads for an uber-light to attract customers who would have gone there anyway?

In fact, the concept that they were even in a position to afford such advances in lighting excellence is so obviously absurd. Hutchinson was clearly referring to a street lamp since he claimed to have stood “against” it. If it was a wall-mounted pub-light, or a “commercial enterprise” as you term it, he would have been standing against the “wall”, which he wasn’t. We’re clearly dealing with a street lamp, and we know from dear old Fisherman’s sources that they emitted a dim light in 1888. Indeed, there is a gas lamp at the very location today. Perhaps not the original, but still in the same location, most probably.

And there’s no compelling evidence that this lamp-related account was ever imparted by someone called George Topping Hutchinson.

“I distinctly dislike it myself, but I am not willing to let Ben have his way. Who knows, maybe the administrators of the boards will get fed up and decide to throw us both off the boards. I would not be opposed to it myself - the total outcome would be for the best, adding things together.”

Again, this is just pathological obsession talking, Fisherman. You’d rather take the lead in derailing the discussion with renewed attacks on my views and character concerning other topics even to the extent of getting booted off the boards for it, if it means trying to secure those desperately cherished points over me? You’re like a Swedish Captain Ahab on crack, Fisherman. “If I go, you’re coming with me!”. Sheer lunacy, but ceaselessly entertaining.

“...until he DID qualify as a plumber, I take it? Or would there be any obstacles in the way for a man who set out on an apprenticeship and did not complete it, to do so at a later stage?”

How likely is it, really, that a working class male in Victorian times would spurn the opportunities afforded him by his parental connections and elect instead to bum around in an East End lodging house? But setting that aside, he clearly WAS plumber by 1891 – census information informs us as much - so he must have undertaken an apprenticeship at some stage. He couldn’t have started one in late 1888, and emerged as a fully-fledged plumber by 1891, so my guess is that Toppy was also a plumber in 1888, after finishing his apprenticeship that commenced in his teens, just as his father had done.

[Fisherman]

And so the mist seemingly clears! Thanks everybody, for chiming in and shedding light on the plumbing affair. It would seem that there may be many explanations to Toppy´s giving his occupation as a labourer instead of a plumber - plus it seems there is a very enlightening parallel within Toppy´s own family! Special thanks for that, David!

It is and remains my firm belief that whatever perceived hinderance we may come across on our way to confirming Toppy´s role as the Dorset Street witness, THERE WILL BE EXPLANATIONS! It´s good to know that so many able hands are willing to dig deep enough to unearth them, one by one.

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

for it goes without saying that if the area was very dimly lit, the police would have been been reluctant to accept such a description, they were not complete idiots.

Well, Richard, it appears that the account was discredited very shortly after it's first appearance, so you're right, perhaps the police weren't complete idiots after all. You'll remember the account of another poster who also grew up with gas lamps, and his experiences cast considering doubt on your hypothesis that Hutchinson would have been "used" to dark, and therefore able to notice and memorize a myriad of border-line impossible items. The jobs you listed weren't trades to which men were customarily apprenticed, and as such are not relevant to this discussion.

[Ben]

So, a boy must serve a 7 year apprenticeship? Apparently it wasn't mandatory (but we thinkers knew that already) and by the LVP, somewhat informal. We also know that apprenticeships didn't have to last 7 years and it was upon the master to decide.

But then you may recall Gareth's useful information, provided early in the thread, which informs us of the extent to which the rules governing entrance to various trades were tightended prior to an 1888, on account of the numerous bogus tradesman doing the rounds in the early Victorian period. If anyone hoped for a quick entry into the profession before 1886, there was no playing fast and loose afterwards. I hope Gareth won't mind me quoting it here again:

The Times, 30th November 1886

THE COMPANY OF PLUMBERS

About two years ago, a movement was set on foot by the Worshipful Company of Plumbers, to promote the better education and registration of members of the craft, and thus to secure thorough and intelligent workmanship in a matter which so vitally concerns not only the individual but the public. Last evening a dinner was given a the Albion, Aldersgate-street, by the Master, the Wardens and Court of the Company to the Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, and to about 150 gentlemen who were invited to meet them. The chair was taken by Mr Alderman Stuart Knill, Master of the Company... [a huge list of nobs and toffs follows].

The Chairman said it was satisfactory to find that the plumbers and the public were virtually of one mind as to the urgent need for some check to the present evils associated with what was called "scamped" plumbing; and the Company was supported on one side by plumbers of all grades and located in almost all parts of the kingdom; while, on the other side, it was upheld by public sanitary authorities, the medical profession, the architects, and others concerned in maintaining public health and comfort.

The summarized results of the investigations of the Company might be said to establish chiefly these things:--

1. That the trade already contained a large number, and was subject to a continual influx, of unqualified men;

2. That the deterioration of the trade was due in part to the falling off of the apprenticeship system, and in part to competition [between] builders obscuring the real lines of distinction between the crafts and allowing labourers rather than plumbers to carry out plumbers' work;

3. That the execution of defective and dishonest plumbers' work was rendered easy by the laxity or entire absence of official supervision and control.

To state the case yet more briefly, at the present time no kind of recognized authority existed touching either the qualification of plumbers or the efficiency of the work done by them. This anomalous state of things was now, in some degree, met by the scheme of Registration, which [now embraced] several hundred plumbers in various parts of the kingdom.

The registration was conducted by special committee [and] plumbers who could satisfy the registering committee of sufficient practical experience in the trade were registered at once. Those who could not were required to undergo an examination. He felt he might promise that the Company would continue to do its part, but the movement must have the extended support of the sanitary authorities, architects and the public at large to render it really successful, and thus remove the evils which the plumbers and the public now suffer by reason of there being neither qualification, test, nor regulation of plumbers' work.

[Ben]

Hi David,

Toppy's uncle John, like Toppy's father George, followed in their father's footsteps and became a plumber. However, on the 1841 census, when he was about 21 years old

At which stage, one might reasonably deduce that he'd finished his apprenticeship, and was not odd-jobbing while he sought work. We could argue the same for Toppy were it nor for the fact that the real Hutchinson made no reference whatsoever to any plumbing history. He would have been a "plumber by trade, now working as a labourer", whereas the real George Hutchinson was ostensibly a "groom by trade, now working as a labourer" with no reference to plumbing, probably because he wasn't one, as Gareth's evidence demonstrates, it was difficult to gain entry into the profression via the quick route after 1886.

All the best,
Ben

[David Knott]

I've done a bit more research using a combination of trade directories and census records, looking specifically for people who were plumbers in the mid 1890s (cross referenced with 1901 census), who were also 22 (ie same age as Toppy in 1888) at the time of the 1891 census to see what their occupation was given as.

It's a rather small sample, I'm afraid, (only 7 who I can say with certainty are the right people) but might be of interest.

Of the 7, three were plumbers when they were 22. Among the others there was one labourer, one toll collector, one painter, and one I couldn't read but it definitely wasn't plumber. Interestingly, two of the three plumbers were married with kids when 22, the four that were not plumbers were still single, as was Toppy in 1888.

David

[Fisherman]

Thanks again, David - this breaks further new ground for the discussion, I should say. So, the four bachelor plumbers had either not gone through the apprenticeship leading to becoming a plumber on their 21:st birthdays - or they were omitting to mention it. Surely, the more reasonable suggestion is the former.
Of course, it would be much interesting to see what occupation/s were held by the fathers of these four - but irrespective of what such a search should turn up, the writing is on the wall by now.
The best,
Fisherman