A theory on GH for JtR

[The Good Michael]

Secondly, you have made a fallacious point regarding Toppy and Hutchinson's fathers having the same profession. Toppy's father can be tracked down. Hutchinson, however, is still an unknown quantity...and if we don't know who he was, how can we possibly know who his father was, or what his father's profession was?

Hutchinson isn't an unknown quantity. He is Toppy and he had the same occupation as his father. Some of us know this. Others ignore it.

As far as besmirching a dead man's name, since Toppy is Hutchinson, he is being condemned, and it is this sort of thing that keeps his relatives from coming forth with any information, anecdotal or otherwise that they may have. Nothing fallacious here, Sunflower, to people who know what's probable.

Mike

[sunflower]

Hutchinson isn't an unknown quantity. He is Toppy and he had the same occupation as his father. Some of us know this. Others ignore it.

As far as besmirching a dead man's name, since Toppy is Hutchinson, he is being condemned, and it is this sort of thing that keeps his relatives from coming forth with any information, anecdotal or otherwise that they may have. Nothing fallacious here, Sunflower, to people who know what's probable.

Mike

Hi Mike

you left out an important qualifier. In your opinion.

I haven't read any books which state categorically that Hutchinson has been identified as Topping. Maybe there is something in the pipeline but I don't know. If this is as solid a fact as you appear to accept, there surely would be something in print about it?

And, as I said, nobody who is refusing the identification of Topping and Hutchinson can possibly be accusing Topping of anything. Hutchinson is still an unknown quantity, and as such, no reputation is being besmirched as far as I can see.

Regards

[Rubyretro]

Can't we keep the Toppy/Hutchinson discussion on an appropriate thread ??

Nonetheless, for the sake of the record, once again, since you are talking about probability Mike:

1)-George Hutchinson was described as being around age 28. He may have been younger (we don't have a birth certificate), and looked older than his years due to rough childhood, bad diet, and hard work -granted. It is probable that he was asked his age by Press and Police though.

Toppy was aged 22 in 1888 -something that we know for sure. He had been brought up in a family home headed by a father with a stable profession (plumbing), in what must have been a pleasant wooded suburb (built up in the 1880s) during his childhood. I doubt that he lacked good food, since money was forthcoming enough that he was able to go to school for longer than many.

Conclusion : it is not probable that 22 year old Toppy would be confused with a 28 year old with a history of hard physical work and lodging houses behind him.

2) George Hutchinson is described as having done various jobs, which include Groom, humping barrels in a pub, and precarious labouring jobs.
Whilst the press may have misreported, it is likely they didn't, since these were not details that would sex up their accounts. 'Groom' was a semi-skilled job in itself,
and not one that 'just anyone' would be employed in without experience (they typically started about aged 10 by mucking out stables).

Toppy was the son of a plumber, and became a plumber himself, for which he would have had to undergo an apprenticeship. He was a bright person who became successfully
self-employed and was "rarely or never out of work". Whilst he may have undertaken other jobs in the East End, it is unlikely that he didn't have enough experience of plumbing from his father to get plumbing work (even imagining that he wasn't yet fully qualified). How would he have had the time (being only 22) to have been a groom, and the rest, and why would he describe himself as an 'unemployed Groom ' and not an 'un-employed Plumber'? If he knew plumbing -a better paid and better considered job', why would he need to hump beer barrels, and why would he not describe himself as a plumber to Press and Police (especially as this would raise his standing in their eyes).

Conclusion : The job histories of the two men have nothing in common.

3) A contemporary drawing of Hutchinson and a photograph of a Toppy do not look in the least bit alike. Although it is true that there is a large age difference between the two, it is generally possible to pick someone out in a phograph taken in their youth..adults do not change their basic bone structure and features.

Conclusion: pictures of the two men show nothing in common.

4) Leaving aside the inconclusive appraisals of their signatures, and whilst George Hutchinson is a very common name (and may even have not been the name on the witness's birth certificate), George William Topping Hutchinson is not so common. It would be expected that the witness would put his full name to a Police Statement If we assume that Toppy was just an innocent witness, why would he not sign his full name, in the normal fashion, to a legal document ?

Conclusion: George Hutchinson was not named George William Topping Hutchinson.

5) The link between Hutchison the witness, and Toppy would appear to hinge on the testimony of the latter's son , Reg. We know that many people later gave themselves a
role in the Ripper story which were untrue, but based on contemporary accounts (Nathan Shine, being just one example). Toppy had a particular reason to remember the details of the case, since he shared a name with a witness (just as Shine had things in common with Israel Schwartz). We know that Reg was offered a share of the profits of Fairclough's book, if it were a success, and therefore had a motive for a good story. The Reg/Toppy story of 'Randolph Churchill' is very good for a book, but does not stand up. One indication that Reg/Fairclough drew information from research on the Ripper Case, and not from real memory, is that they repeated the surely erroneous assertion that Hutchinson the witness was paid a large amount of money by the Police for his help -although we know that he was rapidly discredited in reality, and the 'urban myth' of the same amount of money being paid was also ascribed to Mathew Packer.

Conclusion: Toppy's story (or/and Reg's) does not hold water.

General conclusion: given that analysis of the signatures would seem to be 50/50...and taking all the other points into consideration...the overwhelming probability is that Hutchinson and Toppy were NOT the same person.

Anyone who want's to answer this, I suggest that they start a new thread...

[The Good Michael]

Ruby,

You have taken this thread off topic again and again, and then you warn others not to go off topic, but you do again. Not very bright, I'd suggest.

The original topic involves a new theory. My signature post was only to point Abby to another thread, yet you Hutchinsonites, the few that remain obstinately attached to nothing, pop up like gophers, only I don't have a mallet big enough to hit those enormous rodent heads sending them back to their burrows. Carry on.

Mike

[Garry Wroe]

For the sake of clarification, it should be pointed out that Hutchinson’s date of birth has yet to be established, meaning that the claim that he was twenty-eight years old at the time of the murders lacks anything in the way of substantiation. This, of course, signifies that the alleged connection between Hutchinson and the twenty-eight year old barman of the same name is entirely speculative.

Regards.

Garry Wroe.

[harry]

Toppy or not,plumber or not,ripper or not,why would he take an eight or nine inch knife to Romford?hardly the tool of any trade.

[Rubyretro]

Toppy or not,plumber or not,ripper or not,why would he take an eight or nine inch knife to Romford?hardly the tool of any trade.

Whoever the Ripper was, I feel sure that he had a good reason for carrying a knife without arousing suspicion.

Using my imagination, I can think of several possible reasons why GH might have a knife.

He was described as an unemployed Groom (which may, or may not be true).
In which case he would have a farrier's knife or hooving knife. I tried googling 19th century knives of this type and there are lots of models, including with 8" blades for the long , straight, double edged type. Interestingly, there are plenty of folding knives with several blades (I think that it has been suggested that the Ripper may have had more than one knife). a Groom might need to cut through rope and leather, and cut up dead animals, trim hooves or perform a fast caesarian or quickly kill an animal that was badly injured.

He may have been in the army (he was described as having a 'military appearence' ), in which case he may have brought back a 'souvenir' from the colonies. Bob Hinton mentions in his book the fashion for soldiers coming back with zulu spearheads, which they then attached to a short handle, but I expect that a knife could be brought back from any of the colonies. As he didn't have a fixed home, he would have to carry his possessions with him.

Hutch did labouring jobs, and these were probably not confined to the building trade (we know that he humped barrels in a pub). With the proximity of all those docks and warehouses, it is a good guess that he would take any jobs going in those places. I think that crates would be lashed down on boats, and tied together, and a big sharp knife would be needed to cut through rope sometimes, or cut through sacking and open crates. I can't imagine how a labourer would not be equipped for eventualities of this type.

Even if the first two ideas are too wildly speculative, the last one seems logical.

[harry]

Ruby,
But if Hutchinson was the ripper,I would imagine that he was by that date,mentally building himself up for another killing,and that this compulsion had been prevalent in his thinking for days beforehand.The knife therefor would be seen by him as a weapon.Why take a weapon to Romford?

[Rubyretro]

Ruby,
But if Hutchinson was the ripper,I would imagine that he was by that date,mentally building himself up for another killing,and that this compulsion had been prevalent in his thinking for days beforehand.The knife therefor would be seen by him as a weapon.Why take a weapon to Romford?

Because he would probably have to take all his meagre possessions with him,
and something as useful as a knife would soon be stolen if he left it somewhere, and if he was looking for work he might need his knife (even if it was also seen as a weapon by him ). Also, he may have always planned to come back early from Romford to try and kill MJK.

[harry]

Ruby,
I am trying to visualise Hutchinson in the role of serial killer,w ho by the time of the Kelly murder,had gone several weeks without killing,and was feeling a compulsion to kill again.
Would finding work,and travelling a long distance to find it take precedence?I just don't think so,but of course I could be wrong
As to taking tools of trade,if he was a plumber,where was his plumbing tools?

[richardnunweek]

Hi.
We should all stop this mindless character assasination of one George Hutchinson, alias Topping [ to some of us].
We are talking about the year 1888, and we simply have no idea what this gentleman was about, as a young man of 22.
Clearly he was not living at home, apparently by residing at the Victoria home he was a tradesman, or a man of regular employment, as this establishment was vetted by the police, and men of irregular habits were not entertained.
Just because he was not a full time plumber in 1888, does not imply that Topping was not the witness GH. I was initally a bookmakers clerk in the late 60s, then from the early 70s had many jobs which included labouring, factory assembly worker, and even a tannery worker, before going back to my roots in the betting industry, where I remain today.
It is somewhat annoying, when it is suggested that Hutchinson was not a man of regular employment, therefore would not have received any compensation from the police, when a resident of that lodging house, would be a non resident very quickly if his ability to pay was impaired .
Regards Richard.

[Ben]

Hi Richard,

You’ve just gone and repeated the fallacy that Sunflower sensibly cautioned against: if we don’t accept that Toppy was Hutchinson, we cannot possibly be guilty of the character assassination of Toppy. We just don’t believe he was involved in the events of 1888. This really shouldn’t be difficult to grasp.

“We are talking about the year 1888, and we simply have no idea what this gentleman was about, as a young man of 22.”

Who?

Toppy or the real “witness” who introduced himself as George Hutchinson?

Again, for those of us who don’t believe they were the same person, there’s no reason to believe that the statement-maker was “a young man of 22”.

“Clearly he was not living at home, apparently by residing at the Victoria home he was a tradesman, or a man of regular employment, as this establishment was vetted by the police, and men of irregular habits were not entertained.”

That can’t be true, Richard, because we know that Abberline accepted that Hutchinson was both a resident of the Victoria Home and without regular employment. If there was any mutual exclusivity between these two claims, Abberline would almost certainly have known about it.

“Just because he was not a full time plumber in 1888, does not imply that Topping was not the witness GH.”

The point is that the 1888 Hutchinson didn’t refer to a history of plumbing at all. According to various articles that appeared in the newspapers, Hutchinson was a groom by trade now working as a labourer - the strong implication being that he had nothing to do with plumbing at that stage. It is very difficult to accept that he could then have transformed himself into a fully-fledged plumber less than three years later. But all this was discussed on the thread I provided a link to in my latest post to Mike, and if you read through it properly, you might understand that using yourself as a comparison case doesn’t really make sense.

“It is somewhat annoying, when it is suggested that Hutchinson was not a man of regular employment, therefore would not have received any compensation from the police”

Nobody has ruled out the possibility that he received some sort of compensation. What I have ruled out is the suggestion that he was paid five times a “salary” he wasn’t even earning, but since nobody brought up that issue on this thread, there’s really no reason for you to get annoyed.

Best regards,
Ben

[Abby Normal]

Toppy or not,plumber or not,ripper or not,why would he take an eight or nine inch knife to Romford?hardly the tool of any trade.

Hi Harry
Good point. perhaps, since it was a bit of a journey, he took a bag with him containing his belongings, including a knife. Perhaps he come back sooner than he said and had time to get it from somewhere. or perhaps he did not go to Romford that day.

[Sally]

Privacy

This is interesting, and raises a practical point.

If, say, he was carrying a large knife or two about with him, and living at the Victoria Home; would that make things difficult for him from the privacy perspective?

If he was a killer, and living in what amounted to a public place; then I imagine that would have presented a few problems. I expect men carrying knives then didn't quite have the connotations it would today; but I think a bloody knife, clothes, etc, would have aroused suspicion. Granted, there may not have been much, but a bit risky, all the same.

Going further with this, if he was a trophy taker, what would he have done with the trophies?

He could have paid for a private cabin, maybe - how much would that have been - sixpence?

By coincidence the same amount that Kelly asked him to lend her, according to him.

I'm not saying it's impossible, just wondering how it would work if he was a serial killer with a messy MO living in a common lodging house. In fact, it seems quite likely to me that the killer - whoever he was - lived or closely associated with such places.

[Scorpio]

This is interesting, and raises a practical point.

If, say, he was carrying a large knife or two about with him, and living at the Victoria Home; would that make things difficult for him from the privacy perspective?

If he was a killer, and living in what amounted to a public place; then I imagine that would have presented a few problems. I expect men carrying knives then didn't quite have the connotations it would today; but I think a bloody knife, clothes, etc, would have aroused suspicion. Granted, there may not have been much, but a bit risky, all the same.

Going further with this, if he was a trophy taker, what would he have done with the trophies?

He could have paid for a private cabin, maybe - how much would that have been - sixpence?

By coincidence the same amount that Kelly asked him to lend her, according to him.

I'm not saying it's impossible, just wondering how it would work if he was a serial killer with a messy MO living in a common lodging house. In fact, it seems quite likely to me that the killer - whoever he was - lived or closely associated with such places.

Why is it likely?. I can think of few things as certain as lack of privacy in the post homicide phase to have resulted in the killers apprehension. Removing blood from skin and shiny surfaces is relatively easy, but clothing is different. Hiding stained clothing is difficult in cramped circumstances especially where the standard of hygiene is poor, and would have no doubt resulted in the killer looking doubly suspicious.