Hutch in the 1911 Census?

[The Good Michael]

Crystal,

As long as your views are ours....

Big Brother

[Crystal]

Mike, you know very well that I listen only to the Salmon... Anyway, you hate me-or so I'm told..

[The Good Michael]

Anyway, you hate me-or so I'm told..

Yeah. Thanks for reminding me. I was getting a bit soft on you there. Back to normalcy.

Mike

[Sam Flynn]

Re. the 2 different "H"s

A colleague brought into work a fascinating relic of LVP London this week - her ancestor being a tailor there, she found his Order Book from the early-mid 1880s, and this page caught my eye:



July 30th: Policeman's tunic repaired, cost sixpence. Interesting enough for curiosity value in the context of the Ripper murders, perhaps. However, on looking at both pages just now I noticed something even more interesting, and relevant to this thread:



We have the same man writing the same name ("D H Jones"), but with a "plain H" on one page, and a "flowery H" on the next. The "D" is slightly different as well, but it was the 1888p1-esque "H" that caught my attention.

[The Good Michael]

Gareth,

Thanks for that. It looks to me that he inserted the H in the first one. I sense this because he appeared to have just wanted to put the initial D with a period down. Perhaps he didn't feel there was room for his flowery H? Quite possibly a criminal by the Welsh surname

Cheers,

Mike

[Sam Flynn]

He was a Welsh tailor too, I believe - evidently covering up for others of his "sect"

Interestingly, having seen the rest of the Order Book, it appears that a lot of his customers had Welsh surnames. It was evidently not only expatriate Poles who flocked together in the Great Wen

[The Good Michael]

Off topic, but this reminds me when I was helping a professor with a study and I had to look at ships' journals on microfiche and in actuality from 1685 to about 1798 in America, or the Colonies. The handwriting was so good and it differed from day to day, sometimes depending on moods of the captains, it seemed. It was the first letters where I always saw the variety. Bad day, crewman dead, and perhaps no flourish.

Cheers,

Mike

[Crystal]

Mike - are you serious? I believe it more likely that had more to do with the rum rations..

I hate you too. But the Salmon sends his love.

[Fisherman]

David writes:

"Here's the chorus, at least a part of it:
"Answer my question, answer my question,
Answer my question, answer my question,
Answer my question, answer my question..."

David, I think that what Sam says applies very much to my own wiew too - I really don´t see the major difference you are talking about either. As I have already mentioned, there is a capital "G" in the census listings that seem just as swift and elegant in it´s preformance as that in the police report. After that, I can only add what I have already stated - the census listings were taken down in 1911, and maybe Toppy´s wrist had suffered a lot of hard labour in the 23 years that had passed.
Such things may add a slight degre of a tremble that may lead the thoughts to a less "self-confident" handstyle. A 45 year old man of them days was an older man than todays 45 year olds. Another mileage altogether when it comes to the amount of hard labour put in, in most cases.
Myself, I can´t see that there IS any real difference in the writing in 1888 and 1911, respectively. But maybe he wrote more labouriously and slower in 1911 than he did in 1888, when he was a fit young man, and maybe this is what lies behind the impression you seem to have.

The best, David!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Crystal asks:

"Now why do you think I a) haven't explained what I think and b) haven't said what I should?

I have taken a new look at page ten as you recommended, Crustal, and the only thing I find there is your listing of the deviances you find in the signatures.
What I would like to hear is not WHAT the differences are - I would like to hear WHY things like the capital G would not have been likely to go through the change of looping it to not looping it in that period of ten years. We have built a big pile of evidence on this thread about changing elements of style, and each and every one of these bits and pieces go to show one thing and one thing only - changes in such things are abundant.
Latest, Sam has shown that a man who signed a curlied H could write a very plain H on the facing page in a diary (or what it was). I have told you about my own changed capital letters, Sam has posted his, Observer tells us that he has made major changes time and time again...
That is why I don´t need to hear any more about which deviances wee there in "our" signatures - I need to hear why we should avoid to throw forward the suggetsion that they too may have been subject to the same types of changes? What magic is it that urges us to treat Toppy as a much more static writer than so many other of us? I think that those of us who speak for Toppy as the Dorset Street witness have no trouble at all bridging the smallish gap represented by the deviances, but if you can tell us SPECIFICALLY why Toppy of all people would have been more immune to changes, or why the exact types of deviances he represents signature-wise would have been the exact examples of deviances that are harder to accomplish than other, to the amateur eye quite comparable, deviances - then I would be much interested.
The again, I would be just as interested to hear that Toppy would have been just as likely to change elements of his handwriting as anybody else, and that the deviances involved inbetween the police report signatures and the 1898 and 1911 ones are in no way harder to bridge than any other deviances, generally spoken.

The best, Crystal!
Fisherman

[Ben]

We have built a big pile of evidence on this thread about changing elements of style, and each and every one of these bits and pieces go to show one thing and one thing only - changes in such things are abundant.

But clearly not in Toppy's case, Fish, since he retained a remarkable consistency over a 13-year period. We see the absolute reverse of "abundant" changes. The differences between Toppy's marriage certificate signature and the witness are still in place 13 years later, and Crystal has acknowledged this:

Further examples of Toppy's hand have shown a consistency with the earlier example, and thus do not increase the probability of a match, since the difference are still there, and still the same. As to whether the hand is likely to have changed to this extent over the ten year period between 1888 and 1898 - As I have said repeatedly, Fisherman, it is possible, I do not consider it particularly likely. This is what I have always said.

It isn't "magic" that prompts us to consider that Toppy was unlikely to change his signature. It's the proven evidence of consistency over a very long period of time that sets him apart from the other examples provided.

Such things may add a slight degre of a tremble that may lead the thoughts to a less "self-confident" handstyle.

I thought you were saying earlier that he became more self-confident as he got older and became more settled, and was less so when he was younger and still "finding" himself?

Best regards,
Ben

[Crystal]

Fisherman! I thought I'd scared you away! I'm feeling dizzy with all this going round and round and round and...
What Ben said. That's about right. Its not too early to start drinking...is it??

[DVV]

David writes:

"Here's the chorus, at least a part of it:
"Answer my question, answer my question,
Answer my question, answer my question,
Answer my question, answer my question..."

David, I think that what Sam says applies very much to my own wiew too - I really don´t see the major difference you are talking about either. As I have already mentioned, there is a capital "G" in the census listings that seem just as swift and elegant in it´s preformance as that in the police report. After that, I can only add what I have already stated - the census listings were taken down in 1911, and maybe Toppy´s wrist had suffered a lot of hard labour in the 23 years that had passed.
Such things may add a slight degre of a tremble that may lead the thoughts to a less "self-confident" handstyle. A 45 year old man of them days was an older man than todays 45 year olds. Another mileage altogether when it comes to the amount of hard labour put in, in most cases.
Myself, I can´t see that there IS any real difference in the writing in 1888 and 1911, respectively. But maybe he wrote more labouriously and slower in 1911 than he did in 1888, when he was a fit young man, and maybe this is what lies behind the impression you seem to have.

The best, David!
Fisherman

Hello Fish,
I'm afraid you missed my point (though you got it last time, and answered it, imo, with irrelevant arguments).
What we have to compare is the witness' "G" (all of them being penned in the same manner, shape, style, etc) and Toppy's various "G" in 1898 - all of them being also penned in the same manner, shape, style, etc).

And that gives the strange case of Toppy "Benjamin Button" Hutchinson.

Amitiés mon cher,
David

[Fisherman]

Ben writes:

"But clearly not in Toppy's case, Fish"

Well, Ben, what happens when you amass a lot of evidence that speaks the same language is that you kind of establish a general look of things. And as such, it applies to anybody and everybody. Of course, if we could uncover all the signatures ever written, we would find that it did not apply to everybody to the same extent. Some would be very prone to make changes, whereas others would be the exact opposite.
But that does not mean that this sort of evidence should be in any way disregarded. Nor can we conclude that Toppys thirteen-year consistency means that we may prolong it to a 23-year consistency. He, just as anybody, must be regarded as being subjected to the influences shown by the evidence we are talking about.

"
It isn't "magic" that prompts us to consider that Toppy was unlikely to change his signature. It's the proven evidence of consistency over a very long period of time that sets him apart from the other examples provided."

But these examples, Ben, involve my own handwriting, and as I have told you it has the same traits as the ones we are discussing - I was very consistent in my thirties and forties, but not in my twenties. And there will be heaps of people that have the same experience, as well as there will be those who, like Observer, have ALWAYS changed their stylistic elements. You are welcome to invest in your belief that the thirteen year period says a lot about the period ten years before that, but in reality there is nothing much you can use to bolster it.
I have - so far - not seen one single example of people who have been consistent throughout their twenties, thirties and forties. But if you were to go looking for such a thing, I can tell you right now that you will find it, in abundance. Each of these groups, those who are consistent and those who are not, will be swarming with people; millions of them, literally. And that is the reason why we should not try and fit Toppy into any group at all until we KNOW how he wrote in 1888.

"I thought you were saying earlier that he became more self-confident as he got older and became more settled, and was less so when he was younger and still "finding" himself?"

Are you having me on, Ben? Or are you really not understanding what I am saying? Read again: A slight tremble may lead the thought to a less self-confident writer. That is not saying that he WAS less confident, is it? It is saying that the tremble may veil the fact that he was more mature 1911 than 1888. And THAT is another thing altogether.

The best, Ben!
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Crystal asks:

"Its not too early to start drinking...is it??"

Drink away, Crystal, drink away!

Your own
Fisherman