Hutch in the 1911 Census?

[Ben]

Hi Richard,

lets not forget that those two samples were some 16years apart, and no one here would suggest that signatures are identical every time.

True enough, although the marriage signature (i.e. the one adjudged a mismatch with the witness signatures by a document examiner) was obviously much closer to the time of the murders than 1911! Again, the present comparison was not as obviously a total no-no as I assumed it would have been, but from my layman observations, I can see why Iremonger decided against the match. Capital letters aside, the dissimilarity is simply too great.

Best regards,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

Thanks for the feedback, Bob - however, apropos handwriting being rather "samey" due to schooling, it might be worthwhile looking at the other "George Hutchinson" signatures I posted yesterday. They all look distinctly different to me.

Incidentally, in tending to believe that this is THE Hutchinson (which I have to say I do), it doesn't mean that I have to believe the whole Topping story, which I don't.

[David Knott]

Toppy's signature on the marriage entry interestingly includes his middle names, but the 'George' and the 'Hutchinson' are very similar indeed to his signature on the 1911 census.

David

[richardnunweek]

Hi Sam,
I gather your opinion is, although you are coming to believe GWT may have been the witness known as Gh, you dont accept his story at face value.
If GWT was the man ,then of course we have a insight into the mans personality, via his son Reg, and I would suggest that a picture is painted of a very down to earth man, a family man, a man that loved music hall, and ice skating, he also played the violin, most important of all a hard worker, a dedicated, and meticulous, individual, and a good observer of detail.
If one takes that on board, in my minds eye, we have a young man, proberly dapper like in appearance, a man with decent morals, and someone who was always prepeared to earn his living, he also had a very observant eye, and was not one to elaborate, he would describe what he saw.
Taking all that on board , and suggesting more firmly then ever, that GWT is our man, I would cast aside any suggestions, that this character, had any tendencies of the following.
A Stalker, A mugger, A pimp, A liar, and of course a mass murderer.
People may say , ah Yes' but Reg told Fairclough, that it may have been the highest in the land, someone like Lord Churchill...
I would suggest that GWT, described someone he saw as someone who resembled him , not actually him, he simply was describing someone out of character seen with Mary Kelly, who looked like he was affluent.
Best Regards
Richard.

[Ben]

Hi Richard,

Taking the opportunity to reiterate that I don't believe for one moment that Toppy was the witness, I also observe that the following is simply wishful thinking:

If GWT was the man ,then of course we have a insight into the mans personality, via his son Reg, and I would suggest that a picture is painted of a very down to earth man, a family man, a man that loved music hall

That's not an insight into his character. That's a son bigging up his dad, and is therefore a biased character reference. You ought to hear some of the insights into the character of Dennis Rader before he was exposed as the BTK killer; the perception being that he was the quintessential family man, the sort who you could happily leave your children with - much like the kindly old Albert Fish, or the personable Ted Bundy. You don't take as gospel one character reference from a family member.

You remind us that he played the violin - so did Reinhard Heydrich. And?

Having an observent eye does not bestow upon someone ridiculous superhuman powers of observation, and that holds true whatever Hutchinson's identity, which again was almost certainly not Toppy in my view. Even if it was (ha!), that doesn't make his testimony any less bogus and discredited, and it's noteworthy that one of the sources used to bolster the Toppy theory states that he had "invented" the account.

Best wishes,
Ben

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Sam, I gather your opinion is, although you are coming to believe GWT may have been the witness known as Gh, you dont accept his story at face value.

Indeed, Richard. Whilst I am now inclined to believe that Toppy was the witness, I don't take any of his stories - the ones he told police and press in 1888, and the ones he may/may not have told Reg - at face value either.

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
I respect your take on character cvs, however not all sons/daughters/wife /husbands give a rosy picture of their relations, some are just as liable to inform whoever wishes to know. what a real son of a bitch they were etc, etc,.
In other words Regs accessment of his father may well have been spot on, it has as much chance[ infact more] of being correct as not..
As for observation.
Why is it always brought up of Hutchinsons 'superhuman powers', did not Astracan walk right pass him?,
My cottage is approached down a dark footpath , but if someone passes me , and i was intrested enough to pay special attention to them, i would have no trouble in remembering detail, and as for the hankerchief colour, I would say I could not tell the colour apart from light or dark, but if Hutchinson was adamant that it was red, he obviously believed it to have been.
I am somewhat surprised that this thread is not busier, I would say if it indeed possible that Gwt, was the witness, then that would be, in my mind as much a find as 'Dutfields yard'.
Hutchinson is the most significant witness in the whole of the Ripper case.
Regards Richard.

[Ben]

In other words Regs accessment of his father may well have been spot on, it has as much chance[ infact more] of being correct as not..

Not "infact more", Richard.

It could be true, it could be slightly biased, or it could be completely wrong. We cannot possibly tell, but wisdom still lies in avoiding the trap of accepting family character references as gospel.

My cottage is approached down a dark footpath , but if someone passes me , and i was intrested enough to pay special attention to them, i would have no trouble in remembering detail

Not if he walked past you in a fleeting moment in darkness and poor weather conditions, you couldn't. You'd notice general wearing appearel, or perhaps if he had "stand-out" features, you'd notice one or two of them at the expense of noticing most other details. Hutchinson stated that he took particular attention to the man's face as he walked past him, and if you're focussing on his face in that second or two, you can't also be noticing lots of other minor accessorial details from all over his body, let alone commit them to memory.

But all this has been discussed in depth many times, and isn't really relevant to "Hutch in the 1911 Census". Back on topic then, has anyone found any of Toppy's siblings in the census. In the interests of devil's advocacy, I'm interested in any Romford connections from that period.

Best regards,
Ben

[claire]

Sorry, folks, just coming back to the site after a short absence, so sorry to drag you back to yesterday or the day before...just a word on those signatures...(and thanks to Sam for posting them so thoughtfully in that lovely montage!)

Looking at the similarities between all the GHs, isn't it striking how different the signatures from the witness statement are? Clearly penned by the same hand, the identical 'tch' formation, but very different, nonetheless. I can readily admit that some differentiation happens from signature to signature (esp. if, for example, statement taking copper asks question and one raises one's head whilst signing), but Page 2 truncates the entire first name, and the size of letters is completely inconsistent, as are many of their shapes (the disparity in the 'H' formation has already been commented on).

To me (and I'm not an expert in handwriting analysis, but have looked at it in the context of forgeries [forensic linguistics]), this certainly hints that the writer isn't accustomed to signing that name. Whether this is due to lack of use (because he's a young man, or old, or never needs to write), or because he's not using his real name, I'll leave to you wise folk. But I've rarely seen inconsistencies so pronounced (except when women are practising signing their married name, or girls their 'autographs') on a signature, unless there is a mental health issue.

Very, very interesting.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Claire,

I actually find the police statement signatures rather similar, apart from the florid "H" on the first page. I used to be of the opposite view, until I looked at them together in my recent montage-fest.

Your observation that perhaps this person wasn't used to signing his name is interesting - but, then, I don't suppose the lower working-classes of the East End would have had as many opportunities to use their sigs back then as they might in subsequent generations. That this lack of practice might have been exacerbated because he was young ties in with the possibility that he might only have been 18-22 years old.

[claire]

Yes, absolutely, Sam...my thought was that it might lend weight to his relative youth (and hence to any circumstantial identification). I'm conscious that people wouldn't have signed their names as much as their successors, but I would nevertheless suggest that, if they didn't write anything else, they would write their names (and hence any differences there are more glaring).

I really don't see the similarities that you do (particularly when you lay them next to the examples of the other GHs)...the key is the 'tch' and the misplaced dot on the 'i' which is an artefact of the 'tch' (cross stroke on the 't'). The first is florid, the letters widely spaced; the second shows more cramping on the surname, and an abbreviated first name; the third is significantly more cramped. Still, I'm sure I'll be taking more looks at them (and I suspect that the more one looks, the more similar they seem [but isn't that the case with a lot of things?]). Interesting.

One thing slightly to the side of this (sorry )...if our witness Hutch was only 18-22 (ie. if this is him), then I tend to the view that his statements, whilst embellished, are rather more believable...since he was probably accustomed to casing prospective shake-downs. And his long walk and late night loiterings seem altogether more possible.

[Sam Flynn]

Hello Claire,

I really don't see the similarities that you do

Have a gawk at some "triplets" of letters from each signature on the statement grouped together:



I find those elements remarkably similar.

The first is florid, the letters widely spaced; the second shows more cramping on the surname, and an abbreviated first name; the third is significantly more cramped

What might be easy to overlook is the position of the text on the page, the relative sizes of each signature, the proximity of a (potentially restrictive) line on the paper, the different "wetness" of the ink as it left the nib, etc. etc. - all of which may disturb the naturalness of the signature.

This goes as much for police statements as cheque-books, payment cards, application forms and census returns.

[Sam Flynn]

For completeness, I've taken the montage above and added the same triplets from the "Toppy" signature of 1911 along the bottom row:



The order goes:

Top line - page 1 police statement
2nd line - page 2 police statement
3rd line - page 3 police statement
Bottom - Toppy's 1911 Census sig.

[Chava]

This is probably a dumb comment, but how do we know that the signature of the first page of the statement is the correct signature? Could it be the last page?

(I would have gone to that pdf of the original statement, but someone's done a funny with the 'Witnesses' board and Hutch simply does not appear. Which, ok. I think he's full of sh*t. But I'd still like to keep him around just for jolly!)

[Ben]

Hi Claire,

To me (and I'm not an expert in handwriting analysis, but have looked at it in the context of forgeries [forensic linguistics]), this certainly hints that the writer isn't accustomed to signing that name.

My sentiments exactly.

While I've no doubt that all three witness signatures were penned by the same man, I absolutely agree that it appears that the author in question wasn't accustomed to signing his own name, and I personally don't think this has anything to do with age. To hop from a flourished "H" to a non-flourished H is certainly odd, as is the missing "o" from "son" on the page one signature and the fact that abbreviated to "Geo" on page two.

All share similarities that give the penmanship away though (see Gareth's useful comaprisons) and they contrast markedly with Toppy's signature where only the capital letters share a similarity. It fact, the Toppy comparison is useful perhaps primarily for highlighting the similarities in the three witness signatures.

I wouldn't agree though that Hutchinson's age makes it anymore likely that he was capable of both noticing and memorizing an implausible degree of detail in poor conditions, or that young people are any more likely to walk for long distances or loiter for no reason. Nor would it nullify the suspicious coincidence that he only gave forward with a story about a sinister Jewish toff when it became public knowledge that someone had been seen loitering opposite the crime scene shortly before the murder.

It's worth remembering too that a professional document examiner is on record as not believing that Toppy and the author of the witness statements were the same person.

Best regards,
Ben