Hutchinson and antisemitism ?? A possibility?

[DVV]

Hi Rubyretro,

well, let's say I have a completely different view on Hutch.

Reg's story about Sir Randolph doesn't make Toppy a likely Hutch, imo.

Amitiés,
David

[Rubyretro]

Hi Rubyretro,

This is assuming the witness was Toppy, which I personally don't believe.
Note that Toppy was a bit young to be a likely Sailor Man.

Amitiés,
David

Hi !
I can see nothing that leads me to disbelieve Reg Hutchinson, that his father was the George Hutchinson who was a witness in the JtR case. I have never seen that the Hutchinson family have ever tried to profit from the fact or shown any reason to lie about it. Reg's comment about the Royal Family &
'someone like Randolph Churchill' fits our George (his witness statement did resemble Churchill, and I believe that there is a link with his past as a groom,
and that he would have seen both Churchill and the Prince of Wales at the
races).

Certainly Hutchinson would have been a bit young to be Sailor Man, but I am still sure that he was the man seen by Lawende. Lawende would have seen someone in the pitch black, by his own admission for only a few instants,
and he wouldn't have paid close attention as he could not have known the significance of what he was seeing, in advance. Lawende said that the man had a cap on, a scarf and a moustache -so the face was quite hidden -he also said that he would be incapable of identifying the man again.

[DVV]

Hi Adam,

-nobody saw Mary soliciting that night after the Blotchy episode, except Hutch;
-Astrakhan Man seems a fabrication and in any case, has little to do with Lawende's suspect;
-Hutch made his statement on Monday evening, after the inquest;
-Hutch's second sighting of his suspect on Sunday morning is unbelievable.

That, of course, isn't a proof that he was JtR, but at least it makes him an unreliable witness.
And I don't see why JtR wouldn't have been a "humble labourer".

Amitiés,
David

[Adam Went]

Fleetwood:

Sarah Lewis stated that she saw a man standing opposite Miller's Court as if he was watching for somebody to come out. This corroborates atleast that part of Hutchinson's statement, who also said that he waited outside the Court for around 45 minutes waiting for somebody to re-appear, and then gave up.

Also, we know that MJK was way behind in the rent and probably on the verge of being kicked out of her home, so it's not a stretch to imagine that with Barnett absent and with no money in any case, that she was outdoors soliciting clients - hence, why Hutchinson saw her, hence why she asked him for money, hence why she linked up with the other bloke, hence why Hutchinson followed them.

Perhaps Hutchinson was a bit disappointed that MJK didn't "Say That You Love Me", and wanted to tell the bloke she went with instead to "Go Your Own Way".... but none of this suggests that Hutchinson was telling "Sweet Little Lies" .....ha, ha.

Rubyretro:

So you avoid suspicion by coming forward to the police, naming yourself as the last person besides the killer to see the woman alive, admit that you know them personally and come up with a lavish statement? Yeah I'm afraid I'm not quite seeing that one.....

In any case, if he was JTR, why wait till the MJK murder to come forward? He had been seen by numerous other witnesses before that, it's not like the MJK murder was different. Unless you think that he killed MJK and only MJK, which in turn means that MJK was not killed by JTR - neither of which sound very likely.

He could just as easily have come forward to the police and provided them with a very generic, vague description of the killer, not admitted that he knew the victim and got away with it just as easily.

Anyway, what reason would Hutchinson, a humble labourer, have to brutally kill these woman? What possible motive would he have?

There are so many - SO many - more suspects that are a million times better than Hutchinson as JTR, and his inclusion, IMO, is little more than scraping the bottom of the barrel. Naming another suspect just because it can be done.

Cheers,
Adam.

[richardnunweek]

Hello Rubyretro,
A lot of what you are saying is plausible, and approaching the police by a killer, to assist them is nothing new, we had a rather unpleasant individual by the name of Neville Heath in the 1940s who tried to be clever in doing precisely that.
I believe the picture of George William Topping Hutchinson, which is well circulated, along with family references of his integreity, sways many [ including myself] away from his possible involvement in kellys murder.
He simply does not look like the whitechapel killer.
However he could well have been, if he had chilling control over his deeds, and could fall in love and produce a family, and put all that blood and gore behind him.
Also he did reside at the Victoria home, and he was interviewed by Abberline.
Check the letters thread for a possible conection....
I must admit my views on Hutchinson are heading in a different direction, which bothers me.
Regards Richard.

[DVV]

However, Hutchinson was a very english person
and very bright (he worked himself up from labourer to plumber, and apparently started his own business

Hi Rubyretro,

This is assuming the witness was Toppy, which I personally don't believe.
Note that Toppy was a bit young to be a likely Sailor Man.

Amitiés,
David

[Rubyretro]

The best evidence against Hutchinson being the killer of MJK, or JTR altogether, is his own statement to the police. Surely, nobody is stupid enough to come forward to the police on their own accord, place themselves in the position of being the last person to see the victim alive besides the killer, virtually admit that they had some sort of relationship/friendship with the victim, and give such a lavish description if it was all rubbish, and place themselves in such high danger of being labelled not just a liar, but also the killer. It just does not make sense for that to be case.

Nobody would give Hutchinson's statement a second thought if he had come forward and described the man in the same way as Lawende, Schwartz or any of the others had done. People complain that there was no clear description of the Ripper, and then when they get one, they say the bloke that said it was a liar and probably even the killer. I don't quite understand that one.

Anyway, parts of his statement are backed up by other witnesses, so we know he wasn't outright lying. And he would have been thoroughly questioned and interviewed by the police at the time, and they clearly saw no reason for suspicion. At the height of the murders when just about anyone was getting arrested for just about anything, those are telling facts.

Cheers,
Adam.

Adam -I am amazed that you think that Hutchinson would not have come forward to the police if he had been the murderer ; it seems to me to have been the perfectly logical thing to have done. If a witness had clearly seen him lurking at that time in Millers Court -and he had seen her and knew that she could identify him -the best thing to do was to come clean and admit to being there voluntarily and give a reason for it. He had avoided coming forward at the inquest -because he didn't know whether or not that witness would come forward and how much she had seen. Once he realised that she
could point the finger at him (and he was someone who lodged in that immediate area), he reckoned that he would be in real trouble if he was
picked up and questioned by the police and had to explain why he hadn't
come forward before as a witness (even if it was to say that he hadn't seen a thing). I think that he wanted to deflect suspicion from himself.

The next reason is that he was a 'control freak' -I think that serial killers ARE
control freaks because they think that they can control the right of life or death over their victims. I think that Hutchinson would have been climbing the walls not having any control over the police investigation and not knowing if they were looking for himself.

I also imagine that serial killers think that they are very clever (superior to other people), because they can plot and carry out murder without getting caught. So, Hutchinson would have thought that he could outwit the police
and even manipulate them.

As to him 'virtually admitting' that he knew MJK and sometimes gave her money -he clearly stated that he knew her, and that may have been a lie .
He wanted to say that he had followed her as a 'friend' (the inference being that you wouldn't butcher a 'friend', you might even want to protect them). He had no reason to be outside her room if
wasn't a 'friend', and she was not able to confirm or deny it.

As to the witness statement -Lawende had infact seen and described Hutchinson (by the way, I see that grooms wore caps like costermongers).
Now it must have been pitch black, and he had a cap pulled down and a scarf under his lower face, and of course most men seemed to wear moustaches, so Lawende couldn't identify him. However I think that Hutchinson wanted to point the description well away from himself, as a red herring to confuse the police. He also described a jewish suspect (crucial). Also, the reason that the man with MJK was a 'toff' (and unusual) was his whole argument as to why he had followed her home and hung around ! How could he possibly have justified following MJK and an ordinary punter ? I personally also believe that he didn't pull his description out of a wide-awake hat, but he was describing a hated person
or 'type' from his past, and is a real clue as to his motivation (I believe that if we can trace where Hutchinson was a groom, then his model for Astrakhan man won't be far away).

As to the police discounting him -I have already said in my first post, that I think that the police had mostly instinct to go on, since they didn't have
forensic science nor had they caught anyone red handed. After the state of
MJKs body, they were looking for someone that looked mad. They were looking for a jewish suspect, and they were looking for someone who looked
violent and threatening. However, Hutchinson was a very english person
and very bright (he worked himself up from labourer to plumber, and apparently started his own business), and he was a long way from what the police were looking for. He wasn't even a butcher or someone with medical experience (they probably latched onto the un-employed labourer tag, and didn't realise that as a groom working with lots of animals, he would have had occasion to cut up dead animals sometimes, or see sick animals put down -maybe by cutting their throats, since a vet
wouldn't have had drugs, nor a car to get there quickly, nor would the grooms carry guns about
I'm thinking along the lines that we're looking for a stud breeding race horses & maybe horses for
exportation).

[Fleetwood Mac]

Anyway, parts of his statement are backed up by other witnesses, so we know he wasn't outright lying.

Can you put some meat on the bones of this one Adam? What was backed up?

[Adam Went]

The best evidence against Hutchinson being the killer of MJK, or JTR altogether, is his own statement to the police. Surely, nobody is stupid enough to come forward to the police on their own accord, place themselves in the position of being the last person to see the victim alive besides the killer, virtually admit that they had some sort of relationship/friendship with the victim, and give such a lavish description if it was all rubbish, and place themselves in such high danger of being labelled not just a liar, but also the killer. It just does not make sense for that to be case.

Nobody would give Hutchinson's statement a second thought if he had come forward and described the man in the same way as Lawende, Schwartz or any of the others had done. People complain that there was no clear description of the Ripper, and then when they get one, they say the bloke that said it was a liar and probably even the killer. I don't quite understand that one.

Anyway, parts of his statement are backed up by other witnesses, so we know he wasn't outright lying. And he would have been thoroughly questioned and interviewed by the police at the time, and they clearly saw no reason for suspicion. At the height of the murders when just about anyone was getting arrested for just about anything, those are telling facts.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Rubyretro]

more coincidences

ps I have just done 2 searches with google -1st looking for photos 1880s horse owners Newmarket. I only looked at 2 ('Thormanby' & Sir Tatton Sykes)
-both paintings with the owners in black astrakhan collared coats. second search: 'lord Randolph Churchill (cited by Reg Hutchinson in an interview about his father. Reg said that George accused Churchill 'or someone like him' of 'having something to do with' the ripper crimes)www.answers.com/.../lord-randolph-churchill - answer says that after 1886
Randolph abandoned politics to devote himself to racing.

I think that we will find Hutchinson the groom on a stud breeding racehorses
-just bound to be going to New Market sometimes. I am sure that the clue as to why he became JtR (if i'm correct) is in this direction.

-

I think that we will find Hutchinson the groom on a stud breeding racehorses
-just bound to be going to New Market sometimes. I am sure that the clue as to why he became JtR (if i'm correct) is in this direction

-so I'm nosing around Newmarket in 1888 and I find the 'Autumn Double'
(the Double Event ?) traditionally held in late September to early October the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire handicaps. These coincidences seem to abound..

[Rubyretro]

I'm sure that alot of people were antisemite at that time (and not just in Whitechapel).....however they weren't all spotted lurking in the dark in the early hours of a cold & drizzly morning in a murky courtyard just before a
drunken prostitute was murdered. Neither did they all give false witness statements, later discounted, to the police. So my spotlight is only shining on
Hutchinson, who I believe was JtR.

If my theory is correct that the victims of JtR were killed because they were soliciting next to jewish clubs, and that Hutchinson was the killer, then I would have to prove that he was virulently antisemite -I mean enough to commit murder and not that he wasn't "exactly fond" of jews.

We don't know very much at all about Hutchinson, but we do know that he tried to put the blame on a 'cartoon' jewish suspect and his imagined reaction to this 'suspect' wasn't friendly. We also know that Hutchinson had been a groom (but had switched to transient jobs in unknown circumstances), and that he had a sister in Romford and had been looking for jobs in that area.

Well now I've just found out that the horse trade had some very rich and powerful international jewish dealers, and specifically there was (at least) one with a stud in Romford. Isn't it strange that Astrakhan man was
imagined as being a rich 'toff ' in this murderous slum, and not a poor
immigrant worker, and that he was imagined as wearing a 'horse shoe' pin -which is a trade symbol of the Company of Farriers in Essex ?

I am very wary of adding two and two and making five, but personally I am excited because I think that there are many things pertinent to JtR and Hutchinson still to be discovered. I think that if we find the jewish horse dealers around Essex at that time , then we might well find Hutchinson the groom and even why he left his job if he was sacked. We know that the
horsetrade was international, and we even know that Romford had links with Ghent through Schwarz....did Hutchinson spend time abroad ? (if so, were there any attacks on prostitutes ?). Are there existing photos of rich dealers
that may be wearing a gold watch with a red stone (a pretty conclusive description) and a 'horse shoe' pin ? -it's perfectly possible. Are there existing
photos of the horse fair in Romford ? Or stud owners at race meetings ?
(I bet you anything that the dealers are in black overcoats with astrakhan
collars -as the dealers at horse fairs in Portugal wear overcoats with fox fur
collars still). Did Hutchinson have a grievence against this particular person, and had it manifested itself before ?

I also think that there is work to be done on the knife business. A groom would carry a certain type of farriers knife (or knives) with a straight blade and a hoof pick, and the factories supplying the Essex area can't run into
hundreds. There must be existing knives from this period (I see there are
victorian farriers knives for sale on ebay sometimes) and I think that with the
description, photos, measurements of the wounds -and particularly those V marks on Eddowes face, a pathologist could see if those wounds are compatible with that knife or not.

I think that it is still possible to build up a pile of circumstancial evidence
against Hutchinson -and evidence which is logical and believable and not totally fantasist.

ps I have just done 2 searches with google -1st looking for photos 1880s horse owners Newmarket. I only looked at 2 ('Thormanby' & Sir Tatton Sykes)
-both paintings with the owners in black astrakhan collared coats. second search: 'lord Randolph Churchill (cited by Reg Hutchinson in an interview about his father. Reg said that George accused Churchill 'or someone like him' of 'having something to do with' the ripper crimes)www.answers.com/.../lord-randolph-churchill - answer says that after 1886
Randolph abandoned politics to devote himself to racing.

I think that we will find Hutchinson the groom on a stud breeding racehorses
-just bound to be going to New Market sometimes. I am sure that the clue as to why he became JtR (if i'm correct) is in this direction.

-

[Rubyretro]

I think you'll find that a good majority of citizens living in the East End in 1888 who were not Jewish themselves weren't exactly fond of the Jews. There was, after all, a lot of concern from the police during the murder series that there was about to be an uprising against them - anger and frustration that had been brewing over them for some time was at risk of boiling over with a common belief being that JTR was a Jew as well.

So Hutchinson might have harboured some anti-semitic feelings. But that's pretty hard to judge, and even if he did, he was far from alone in that at the time.

Cheers,
Adam.

I'm sure that alot of people were antisemite at that time (and not just in Whitechapel).....however they weren't all spotted lurking in the dark in the early hours of a cold & drizzly morning in a murky courtyard just before a
drunken prostitute was murdered. Neither did they all give false witness statements, later discounted, to the police. So my spotlight is only shining on
Hutchinson, who I believe was JtR.

If my theory is correct that the victims of JtR were killed because they were soliciting next to jewish clubs, and that Hutchinson was the killer, then I would have to prove that he was virulently antisemite -I mean enough to commit murder and not that he wasn't "exactly fond" of jews.

We don't know very much at all about Hutchinson, but we do know that he tried to put the blame on a 'cartoon' jewish suspect and his imagined reaction to this 'suspect' wasn't friendly. We also know that Hutchinson had been a groom (but had switched to transient jobs in unknown circumstances), and that he had a sister in Romford and had been looking for jobs in that area.

Well now I've just found out that the horse trade had some very rich and powerful international jewish dealers, and specifically there was (at least) one with a stud in Romford. Isn't it strange that Astrakhan man was
imagined as being a rich 'toff ' in this murderous slum, and not a poor
immigrant worker, and that he was imagined as wearing a 'horse shoe' pin -which is a trade symbol of the Company of Farriers in Essex ?

I am very wary of adding two and two and making five, but personally I am excited because I think that there are many things pertinent to JtR and Hutchinson still to be discovered. I think that if we find the jewish horse dealers around Essex at that time , then we might well find Hutchinson the groom and even why he left his job if he was sacked. We know that the
horsetrade was international, and we even know that Romford had links with Ghent through Schwarz....did Hutchinson spend time abroad ? (if so, were there any attacks on prostitutes ?). Are there existing photos of rich dealers
that may be wearing a gold watch with a red stone (a pretty conclusive description) and a 'horse shoe' pin ? -it's perfectly possible. Are there existing
photos of the horse fair in Romford ? Or stud owners at race meetings ?
(I bet you anything that the dealers are in black overcoats with astrakhan
collars -as the dealers at horse fairs in Portugal wear overcoats with fox fur
collars still). Did Hutchinson have a grievence against this particular person, and had it manifested itself before ?

I also think that there is work to be done on the knife business. A groom would carry a certain type of farriers knife (or knives) with a straight blade and a hoof pick, and the factories supplying the Essex area can't run into
hundreds. There must be existing knives from this period (I see there are
victorian farriers knives for sale on ebay sometimes) and I think that with the
description, photos, measurements of the wounds -and particularly those V marks on Eddowes face, a pathologist could see if those wounds are compatible with that knife or not.

I think that it is still possible to build up a pile of circumstancial evidence
against Hutchinson -and evidence which is logical and believable and not totally fantasist.

[Adam Went]

I think you'll find that a good majority of citizens living in the East End in 1888 who were not Jewish themselves weren't exactly fond of the Jews. There was, after all, a lot of concern from the police during the murder series that there was about to be an uprising against them - anger and frustration that had been brewing over them for some time was at risk of boiling over with a common belief being that JTR was a Jew as well.

So Hutchinson might have harboured some anti-semitic feelings. But that's pretty hard to judge, and even if he did, he was far from alone in that at the time.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Rubyretro]

P.S if Hutchinson based his description of Astrakhan Man on a hated jewish horse dealer......what about that 'horse shoe tie pin' ?

pps :Miller Christy, in his book "The Trade Signs of Essex," says that horse-shoe signs probably owe their origin partly to the fact that this symbol appears on the arms of the Farriers' Company, and partly to the old practice of fastening a horse-shoe upon the stable-door or elsewhere as a witch-scarer. In the county of Essex the horse-shoe may be seen upon the signs of beerhouses at Great Parndon, Braintree, Waltham Abbey, and High Ongar.

[Rubyretro]

Thanks Ben -I very much look forward to reading that article !I found a few things today that interested me -what do you think ?

First of all, I was thinking about Hutchinson having been a groom and it suddenly came to me that those marks on Catherine Eddowes' face were made by a 'hoof pick' -a hooked instrument that could also be used for harvesting organs in a confined space. Infact grooms would carry a long straight knife & a hoof pick (sometimes combined like a swiss army knife)
and the designs vary. It's probably possible to find what firms were manufacturing equestrian knives for sale at that time in a certain radius, and match them to the marks.

Mooremaker.com Working Knife #3208 - HOOF PICK and
meNEW Schrade Knives Equestrian Bowie Knife SCH1850
(those are both new, but I don't think the design has changed much).

Next, I was just idly speculating on where exactly Hutchinson had worked as a groom I was thinking along the lines of somewhere with lots of horses
(where he might have had to/ have seen horses 'put down' by throat cutting,
and seen dead horses butchered) -so Essex came to mind with Great Leighs
and New Market not far away, and lots of stud farms between them, and I was wondering what sort of job he had been looking for in Romford exactly?

So I googled ' Horse fair Romford Essex' (where would you have looked for a job as a groom ?) and this answer came back 3rd down : "Revolution and Evolution 1848 German-Jewish History" books.google.fr/books?isbn=3167437529... Given the title of this thread, you have to admit it's a strange coincidence, and a reply totally unexpected for Romford !

Here are a couple of extracts from page 108 :

"In Western Germany, jewish horse dealers imported horses from Belgium and England. In Zulpich, a small town west of Bonn, the horse-trading firm Schwarz imported stud horses from Ghent, Thourout, Romford (Essex) and London...." "......From details like these we can see that horse dealers often were the wealthiest members of a rural community. Horse trading required much Capital, and it was often conducted as an international business over long distances. It was of great advantage for jewish horse dealers that many of the horse dealers in the foreign countries from which the imports came were also jews"

OK this is dealing with a period 40 years earlier than the period that we're interested in (don't forget that Hutchinson would have started as a groom
almost a child) -but would things have radically changed ?

If by coincidence we found our Hutchinson had worked for a rich jewish international horse dealer in Romford -what would that signify ?

I should love to know under what circumstances Hutchinson stopped working as a groom and came to Whitechapel, because obviously if we want a reason WHY he was antisemite then any grievences that he had against a rich and powerful jewish ex-employer might give us a motive.

I should also be curious to see whether his jewish horse breeder (pure speculation on my part that he ever worked for one) boss, resembled the
'suspect' that he invented (maybe photos of these horse owners still exist ?).

What do you think of that Ben ?

P.S if Hutchinson based his description of Astrakhan Man on a hated jewish horse dealer......what about that 'horse shoe tie pin' ?