Joran Van der Hutchinson?

[Fisherman]

Yes, Monty, the width of that particular hart was large - and that goes hand in hand with your assesment.
But the felt in it was hard - and that goes against your statement.

All I am suggesting is that there may have been OTHER varieties too, mixed into the mould. And at the extreme ends of the scale would have been a stiff, smallish billycock hat with a small brim, and a soft-felted wideawake with a brim that would put the Sombrero of the singer in a 1950:s Mexican danceband in the shade.

Furthermore, I am suggesting that Lewis did not come up with ANY hat at all as she met with the police. It was not until the inquest that man or hat took some sort of shape.

"The bottom line is that the Billycock was referred to as the Billycock and the Wideawake as the Wideawake."

...and the Webster´s dictionary spoke of the billycock, or, as it was also known, the wideawake. That was THEIR bottom line back in 1913.

Therefore, I am ever so politely and humbly suggesting that the man Lewis saw opposite the court on that night, may not have worn what we today perceive as a wideawake hat. Then again he may have done so.

... but if this is going to deny me a good start to the weekend, I´d gladly settle for any hat that you suggest: !

...and I have no difficulty to accept that

A/ If we need to decide on just the one type, the classical wideawake is the better choice. After all, that is the only one we have on record, albeit a wobbly ditto, and

B/ It IS nice to simplyfy matters once in a while!

Have yourself a nice weekend, Monty!

The very best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Ben!

"That really doesn’t make any difference, Fish.
Buildings are also a “completely static phenomenon”, but if I were to state as fact that a particular building was ugly when you considered it a thing of architectural beauty, you would surely question my right to mutate what is so obviously an opinion into a fact?"

I do not judge the beauty of the "building" we are speaking of, Ben. I count the windows and the doors, I measure the height, I take a look at the type of bricks and the shape of the roof, and I establish how many chimneys it has.

Static. Will be the same next day. Will enable me to tell it apart from any other building that does not correspond exactly to these parametres.

Have a nice weekend, Ben.

The best,
Fisherman

[Monty]

Fisherman,

The debate of who was wearing what, who saw who wearing whatever then there just really holds no interest for me.

I find it extremely hard to believe that when someone said Billycock they meant Wideawake.

It is simple, there is no need to over complicate.

Monty

[Fisherman]

Monty:

"The debate of who was wearing what, who saw who wearing whatever then there just really holds no interest for me.
I find it extremely hard to believe that when someone said Billycock they meant Wideawake.
It is simple, there is no need to over complicate."

Hi Monty!

I realize what you are saying. But I think that if we do NOT "complicate" things here to some extent, we miss out on a number of details that may have very much of a bearing on the issue.

To begin with, we know that Sarah Lewis said in the initial police report that she could not describe the man she had seen in Dorset Street.
She would have supplied the police with the information that she had indeed seen a man outside the court, as if keeping a watch on it.
When this information was offered by Lewis, I think we can easily realize what the police must have done. Here they were, with a witness who may possibly have spotted Jack in the waiting to kill his (purportedly) fifth victim. I say that this ensures that questions must have been posed to Lewis about the looks and possible identity of the man.
Was he tall or short?
Thin or sturdy?
Dark or fair?
I cannot possibly see the police forgetting to ask these things! Yet, they came up with absolutely nothing. They drew a total blank; Lewis could not describe the man.

To me, this makes her efforts at the inquest very, very questionable. She may well have believed that what she now stated was what she remembered, but the mind plays curious tricks on us is situations like these, when we feel we need to remember somebody to help the proceedings. And indeed, what she offers is very thin: the man was "not tall - but stout" she said. She could not say what kind of clothes he had been wearing, but she was able to say that his hat was a black wideawake.
These are all things that had dawned on her somewhere inbetween the police report and the inquest. From not having been able to point out one single thing about her man, she suddenly can pinpoint not only the model of his hat, but also the colour.

My own conviction is that this all is something that has taken shape and form inside Lewis´mind. And just how correct it would have been is quite impossible to tell, but research into witness psychology urges us very strongly not to attach to much weight to testimony like this. The inescapable conclusion is that the wideawake you mean she must have meant, may well have been nothing more than a figment of Lewis´imagination.

If we thereafter add the inference that there was some sort of interchangeability inbetween billycock and wideawake, and the very clear fact that at the very least the material (hard or soft felt) changed from wideawake to wideawake, then I think a very fair case can be made for the necessity of challenging Lewis testimony from the inquest.

I would like to offer something for comparison here: In a Swedish experiment, a number of students were attending a lesson in a classroom, held by two lecturers. By their side, a third man was standing for a few minutes, after which he left the classroom. The students were then asked to describe him. There were a good many bids for the trousers, the jacket, the shirt, but the most interesting thing came about when the students were asked about what colour of tie the man had worn.
-Blue, some said.
-No, red! others stated.
-Yellow.
-Brownish!

All kinds of bids were placed. Of course, the man had worn no tie at all. But when the students were asked to comply by offering the colour they had "seen", they readily did so.
And I think that black wideawake may just go very well together with them ties ...

I hope I´m not annoying you too much with this, Monty. I just think that these are important things to keep in mind.

The best,
Fisherman

[Simon Wood]

Hi Fisherman,

Regarding Sarah Lewis's testimony, who was the female Mr Wideawake was talking to whilst standing alone outside the lodging house opposite Millers Court?

Regards,

Simon

[Fisherman]

You do ask some tricky questions, Simon. Am I correct in anticipating that you have a bid for her identity yourself...?
By the way, where do we find her? I can´t see her in either police report or inquest material?

The best,
Fisherman

[Ben]

Hi Fisherman,

I believe the original police report initially had the Wideawake man "talking to a female", but this was crossed out, and all subsequent recountings of Lewis' evidence include the detail that "there was no-one talking to him". This is probably what Simon is referring to. The confusion may have stemmed from the fact that Lewis mentioned another couple at the corner of Dorset Street, outside "Ringers'" whom she passed very shortly before noticing the solitary be-wideawaked figure.

All the best,
Ben

[Simon Wood]

Hi Fisherman,

Ben's absolutely right in spotting the source of this evidential conundrum.

Sarah Lewis was wearing her Mrs Kennedy hat when she reported seeing people outside the Britannia at the corner of Dorset Street.

We are spoiled for choice as to whom she saw, and when. There are three variations amongst Mrs Kennedy's 11 newspaper appearances–

1. Untimed: 1 man and 2 women [all unidentified]
2. 3.00 am: 1 man (who had earlier accosted her) and Kelly [man recognised, woman identified].
3. 3.30 am: 1 woman and 2 men [all unidentified].

Interesting that at 3.00 am Kelly was in Room 13 with Mr Astrakahn.

Also that it was Abberline who interviewed Sarah Lewis, Mrs Kennedy and George Hutchinson.

Regards,

Simon

[Fisherman]

Ben writes:

"I believe the original police report initially had the Wideawake man "talking to a female", but this was crossed out, and all subsequent recountings of Lewis' evidence include the detail that "there was no-one talking to him". This is probably what Simon is referring to. The confusion may have stemmed from the fact that Lewis mentioned another couple at the corner of Dorset Street, outside "Ringers'" whom she passed very shortly before noticing the solitary be-wideawaked figure."

U-huh. Thanks for that, Ben! I knew about the couple, but if I have ever read about the woman, it has since slipped my mind...

The best,
Fisherman

[Fisherman]

Simon:

"Sarah Lewis was wearing her Mrs Kennedy hat when she reported seeing people outside the Britannia at the corner of Dorset Street.
We are spoiled for choice as to whom she saw, and when. There are three variations amongst Mrs Kennedy's 11 newspaper appearances–
1. Untimed: 1 man and 2 women [all unidentified]
2. 3.00 am: 1 man (who had earlier accosted her) and Kelly [man recognised, woman identified].
3. 3.30 am: 1 woman and 2 men [all unidentified].
Interesting that at 3.00 am Kelly was in Room 13 with Mr Astrakahn.
Also that it was Abberline who interviewed Sarah Lewis, Mrs Kennedy and George Hutchinson."

Thanks for that, Simon. Chewing time ...!

The best,
Fisherman

[caz]

Hi All,

So if Hutch went forward as a direct result of Lewis saying she saw a man wearing a wideawake hat loitering in the vicinity of the latest murder, are people here saying that he did or did not take a wideawake hat with him for his police interview?

We know so very little about how Hutch came across in terms of his physical appearance, and there is nothing at all to indicate whether any sort of mental comparison was made between Hutch and Lewis's man, either by the police or by Hutch himself.

Unless there would have been very few people passing, entering, leaving or just hanging about the court late at night, and unless those who did so could pinpoint, virtually to the second, when they were actually there on the night in question, and whether anyone else was there too, I don't see why it follows that Hutch had to be the man Lewis saw at one point, or that he had to notice her during his own vigil, or had to recognise himself from her witness testimony.

If, for example, he lied about being there, or didn't own or ever wear a wideawake hat, this whole line of speculation is misleading and will not take us anywhere. If, on the other hand, he sat there with Abberline, bold as brass with the same wideawake hat he knew Lewis had seen him wearing, shortly before he entered that room to commit murder (figuring that he would instantly be recognisable as Lewis's man without having to say a word about her, and would be taken for an equally honest witness when telling his own story) it beggars belief that they would not have made the connection and made more of it, at least while he was considered such a potentially vital witness.

You'd think at the very least that Abberline, armed with this intelligence, would go back to Lewis to see if she could remember anything else at all in connection with her lurker, considering his account of Mary taking Mr A back to her room. And yet there is nothing even to hint that Hutch wore a wideawake to the cop shop. Without one, the theory that he was forced out of the shadows because this very item of headgear would have made him identifiable starts to fall apart at the seams.

Love,

Caz
X

[Ben]

Hi Caz,

It cannot, of course, be proven beyond reasonable doubt that Hutchinson was the man in question, but a strong case can obviously be made in that regard. Hutchinson claimed not only to be standing in the same location – and at the same time - as Lewis had earlier described her loitering man in a wideawake, but engaging in the same activity of watching and apparently waiting for someone to emerge from the entrance to Miller’s Court. Unless anyone wants to argue that such solitary vigils were commonplace at that location - especially at that wee hour of the morning and in miserable weather – it follows that Hutchinson either was the individual seen by Lewis, or knew about her account and wanted to assume the loiterer’s identity for some reason, and I don’t find the latter option at all credible for reasons outlined in an earlier post to this thread.

Moreover, it seems scarcely credible to me that the timing of Hutchinson’s account, coming on the scene so soon after the termination of the inquest, was mere random coincidence, especially when we consider that he could have made himself known at any time over the three days that elapsed between the murder becoming public knowledge and 6.00pm on 12th November, or indeed any time after that.

That said, I agree that he was unlikely to have been “forced out of the shadows because this very item of headgear would have made him identifiable”. As I discovered from some earlier net sleuthing, and as Fisherman has pointed out, the definitions regarding Billycocks, Wideawakes and even Bowlers had become somewhat blurred around the period in question. Ada Wilson described her attacker as having worn a wideawake, and here’s how the headgear was depicted later by the press:

http://photos.casebook.org/displayimage.php?pid=387&fullsize=1

In other words, hardly distinctive and a far cry from the Quaker-style hats I once assumed they were. Interestingly, press sketches of Hutchinson himself featured him sporting similar headgear, although whether this signifies that he wore his “Dorset Street” hat to the interview may never be determined. Even if he did, it’s doubtful in the extreme that this would have rendered him “instantly (..) recognisable as Lewis's man”. That’s not to say the police never inferred a connection between Lewis and the loiterer, and if they did, they may well have made "more of it", but that doesn’t mean that this “Eureka!” moment should have survived in written report form.

All the best,
Ben

[Rubyretro]

Hi All,

So if Hutch went forward as a direct result of Lewis saying she saw a man wearing a wideawake hat loitering in the vicinity of the latest murder, are people here saying that he did or did not take a wideawake hat with him for his police interview?

Hutch came forward to the Police and identified himself as the witness seen by Lewis lurking in Miller's Court. He did so after Lewis had spoken of a loitrer at the inquest -a man looking down the Court "as if waiting for someone", whom she described as short & stout and wearing a wideawake hat.
There are only 3 possibilities to my mind (and leaving aside any suggestion that Hutch was the killer) :
1)-Hutch didn't know anything about Lewis and came forward spontaneously, in which case his testimony agrees with hers, because he states that he WAS in the Court at that time, and he was looking towards Mary's room, waiting to see if A Man came out.
2)-Hutch heard about Lewis's witness statement, it agreed with his description, he recognised himself and felt obliged to come forward rather than risk an identification as the possible killer.
3) Hutch was nowhere near the Court, but heard about Lewis' witness statement and came forward as an attention seeker

If Hutch were NOT short stout and did NOT own a wideawake hat, in the 3 cases it would have given this result :
1) Mrs Lewis got her description wrong, but Hutch WAS in the Court because he had spontaneously described his actions that night, without knowing anything about anything that she said;
2) Mrs Lewis was right, she had described Hutch, and he came forward as 'damage limitation', recognising himself in her description.
3) Hutch was only an attention seeker, not even there at the stated time, but he felt able to pass himself off as the 'loiterer' because he matched the description given.

We know so very little about how Hutch came across in terms of his physical appearance, and there is nothing at all to indicate whether any sort of mental comparison was made between Hutch and Lewis's man, either by the police or by Hutch himself.

In the immediate days after Hutch coming forward, his story of standing in Miller's Court, watching Mary's room for A Man to come out, at that particular moment in time, was believed because it was seemingly corroborated by Mrs Lewis's statement. Ergo, he matched her description (short/tall, thin, in a saltn'pepper jacket and a flat cap would not do). Proof that the Police believed Hutch, was that they began searching for A Man, marching Hutch around town looking to identify him. Journalists (notoriously cynical) also interviewed Hutch, and believed him -if he had not matched the witness statement of Lewis and her physical description of the 'loiterer', hard bitten journalists would have picked up on the fact straight away.

Unless there would have been very few people passing, entering, leaving or just hanging about the court late at night, and unless those who did so could pinpoint, virtually to the second, when they were actually there on the night in question, and whether anyone else was there too, I don't see why it follows that Hutch had to be the man Lewis saw at one point, or that he had to notice her during his own vigil, or had to recognise himself from her witness testimony

.
The early hours of the morning were so lonely, and Miller's Court was so tiny,
that it is impossible that two people in it would not be in very close proximity
and not notice each other. Hutch apparently could overhear A Man and Mary
( who would surely choose to stand some way away from a third person ??)
-Hutch could assert believably that he had heard Mary and A Man talking , because people in the Court would be virtually on top of each other..plus it was silent and echoey). It is totally believable that in an isolated dark spot at that hour, Lewis would scurry past Hutch in a hurry feeling vulnerable, but Hutch would (not feeling physically in danger) notice lots about her, more than she did of him.

If, for example, he lied about being there, or didn't own or ever wear a wideawake hat, this whole line of speculation is misleading and will not take us anywhere. If, on the other hand, he sat there with Abberline, bold as brass with the same wideawake hat he knew Lewis had seen him wearing, shortly before he entered that room to commit murder (figuring that he would instantly be recognisable as Lewis's man without having to say a word about her, and would be taken for an equally honest witness when telling his own story) it beggars belief that they would not have made the connection and made more of it, at least while he was considered such a potentially vital witness.

I can't believe that Hutch had a vast wardrobe, nor, as a Dosser, he didn't have his possessions with him. If the Police believed that he was Lewis's witness then he must have had a wideawake hat with him. The Police did not need to 'make more of it' since Hutch was volunteering that he was the man seen by Lewis -not trying to hide it.

You'd think at the very least that Abberline, armed with this intelligence, would go back to Lewis to see if she could remember anything else at all in connection with her lurker, considering his account of Mary taking Mr A back to her room. And yet there is nothing even to hint that Hutch wore a wideawake to the cop shop. Without one, the theory that he was forced out of the shadows because this very item of headgear would have made him identifiable starts to fall apart at the seams.

X

Mrs Lewis evidently didn't remember anything more about the loiterer -but Hutch couldn't be sure of that in advance. He couldn't be sure that Mrs Lewis hadn't actually given the Police more information as to the description of him, than the Police had made public.

Ruby x

[richardnunweek]

Hello Guys,
Every so often on casebook another thread on our infamous Hutch springs to life, and so it should.
I can say with hand on heart, that anyone that has the time, and inclination, to trace this elusive broadcast of mine[ ie Reg] they will be rewarded if they search through editions of the Radio times between the dates[ sorry about the gap of time, but best to be sure] 1971-1975 up to may that year.
The article explaining the programme figures on the left hand side of one of the Rear pages.
When yours truely, accompanied by my wife, and eldest daughter, visited Brighton University a year or so back, we looked at the relevent editions , but only the pages at the front, that discussed the programmes that week.
That was a huge mistake, as it was the rear , as I now recall.
With regard to that programme, again hand on heart, it was aired at 8pm on a weekday tuesday/wednesday?, it lasted about forty minutes, and it was to the best of my knowledge entitled 'The man that saw jack', or similar.
Near the end of the broadcast there apparently was a taped interview with the son, of the man that saw Jack, ie Hutchinson, who mentioned exactly the same, as was relayed to Fairclough, and which featured in his 'Ripper and the Royals' some 18 years later.
The same sum paid was the same , the someone 'up the social ladder' figured also, and to the best of my memory, the words used, by the alleged son of the witness, said by his father reflecting on the event was.' It was his deepest regret that dispite his efforts in assisting the police, nothing came of it.
Because the radio programme , and the book were nearly two decades apart, and reflected the same, it surely points to Reg Hutchinson, does it not?
Either that or its an amazing coinidence.
Military appearance, indicates a smart type, possibly well groomed...an eye for detail perhaps. rather like Topping[ or what we know of him.
Refering to nobody else of older generation in the family, hearing that broadcast, whats new,.. nobody but me, on Casebook has ever heard it.
But Guys the evidence is there, just research, and you will find. I Should have been succesful, but blew it, but to be honest I dont need convincing because I heard it .
But Casebook does...
Regards Richard.

[Rubyretro]

Hi Richard -

I have an offer for you !

My Family live right near Brighton and I take a holiday to visit them a couple of times a year. Due to work commitments up until the end of December, the next time will be in January. I will PM you near the date, and if you give me exact instructions, I think that it would be an interesting experience for Me to go to Brighton University and try and track down for you, your radio programme; I would be thrilled for you to get proof that it existed.

In return though, I'd like you to do something for Me. I have a book called 'Reincarnation ? The Claims Investigated' by Ian wilson. I would have bought you a copy, but can't find one...still, if you PM me with your address, I will lend you my sellotaped together copy. It will demonstrate to you, without a shadow of a doubt, how people can read something, identify with what they are reading and visualise it like a film in their mind, and then totally forget, conciously, what they've read. Years later they can dig up this 'film', place themselves in it, and be utterly convinced by the realism of their own 'false memory' that they have lived through the event.

I have no doubt that these people are sincere -and as they are so convinced themselves by what they 'remember', so they are convincing for others. My Mother owns a
copy of the Arnall Bloxham/Jeffery Iverson recordings cited in the book, and by a strange quirk (Edward Ryall* was dead by the time this book was published), Ryall was my 'penfriend' when I was about 16, and I actually went to stay with him at his house near Southend (he must have been around 80 at the time) (yes, I WAS a weird teenager -
a punk rocker with a 'crush' on the Duke of Monmouth !). These people, recounting these fantasies in short, are entirely believable when you hear them BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THE TRUTH OF WHAT THEY'RE TELLING YOU THEMSELVES.

Yet, at the end of Wilson's book, he cites the published historial novels from which these people constructed their 'memories' : there is not a 'shadow of a doubt' as to the source material, since not only were the novels published before the 'memories' came to the fore, but of course the authors of the novels had done alot of research. Although, the people 'remembering' came out with so much period obscure detail - there wasn't anything which could not be found in the novels. The clincher though, was that they repeated the authors MISTAKES and 'artistic license'.

Interestingly, there is also something in common with the type of person having the 'memories' : they are all 'artistic' 'visual' personalities that that paint, write, act etc.
They are people that empathise with other people. They are touched by having something in common with a character in the novel, and 'identify' with them (they nearly never take the role of the protagonist, but of a minor character...which always makes their story more believable). I think that Toppy has something in common with this type of
person, and I think that the same 'mechanism' is at work :
-Toppy carried a cane, went to the Music Hall and married an Actress (it points to him being 'artistic' ).
-Toppy was educated -he is listed as being a 'scholar', and he could read the papers
-Toppy had a name in common with George Hutchinson, he knew the East End, and one can understand that he would have been attracted to reading about things pertaining to Hutch, at the time, although he may have forgotten doing so. He had a reason for identifying with the witness.
-Although Randolph Churchill has obviously nothing to do with the case, one can imagine that the description of A Man could correspond in Toppy's mind, when he read the
original description -he visualised someone 'very like' Churchill.

The clincher for Me is the Wheeling Report : Richard, you always cite this obscure document as being the 'evidence' both for the Wheeling Report being true (it was confirmed by Toppy years later), and for Toppy's memories of being 'the Witness' being true, because he cites information which could only come from the Wheeling Report. Yet, reading over the forums concerning the payment of the sum of money to Hutch, it seems clear to Me that the Wheeling Report got things wrong -and as in the Reincarnation cases, this is proof of Toppy's 'source' -the Newspapers !

So I will try and find that Radio show for you, Richard, but I don't know what it will prove : I have always believed that Reg was sincere anyway, and I think that
Toppy was sincere ...but he was not the witness George Hutchinson. Every concrete Fact goes to prove that it was nearly impossible for him to have been so (yes, I will go along with 99.99% impossible).

* published book, memories of the Monmouth uprising "Second Time Around" Edward Ryall