George William Topping Hutchinson Records

[Lechmere]

My apologies Malcolm - that interlude was just to show the provenance of wedding certificates not the nature of Toppy's signatures.
I'm not going to discuss the merits or otherwise of Toppy's signatures relative to the Hutchinson witness statement here. In my opinion it would clutter up this thread which is already complicated enough.
When I have finished finding all the relevant documents I can relating to Toppy and his family then I'll start a new thread abvout handwriting, unless someone else does before.

[Malcolm X]

i'm sorry but what is all of this Lechmere uploaded stuff, it's now getting very confusing around here and it's too long winded to understand easily.

i would like to see so i can send off.

COLUMN A....... all of Toppy's known signatures

COULMN B.......Toppy's witness statement

you choose all of toppy's known signatures, because only you know and please upload these for me

[Malcolm X]

malcolm,

You're falling for tha BS that was thrown around last time. A document examiner is useful when detecting forgeries. In the case of looking at normal signatures, Sam was as good an expert as any, as are you and I. If we have reason to believe someone was purposefully disguising signatures so that they could trick us 120 years in the future, by all means bring someone in. Until then, my eyes are as good as any others.

Mike

i dont think the signatures are disguised at all, they simply look different from each other and this applies to Toppys signature too

[Lechmere]

If we look at the full page of the parish record, which shows four marriages, we can see that the same clerk compiled the general information on three out of the four certificates.
The Vicar of Holy Trinity was called James Greaves.
If Sally is interested she might wish to consult the Booth papers held at the London School of Economics Library as it contains an interview with the Reverend Greaves (B182, pp102-115).
Brown only officiated at Toppy’s marriage.
Greaves officiated at two marriages and the fourth was presided over by the curate who was called Green.
Green also seems to have filled out all the general details in the marriage he conducted. However this is perhaps explained by the following which appears after his name: Clerk in Holy Orders, curate.
As a minor point of interest, in the following year Green baptised Toppy’s first born and his wife at the same time.
Green had characteristically spidery handwriting which is quite unlike the neat handwriting used on Toppy’s genuine certificate and the two other certificates that appear on the same page.

This is extra evidence that Brown filled in the bogus certificate. It clearly isn’t in the hand writing of either the usual Holy Trinity Clerk, nor of Green and the Brown signature is a good match for the other writing on the bogus certificate.

As this would have been the most easily accessible certificate in 1992 it is a fair assumption that this was the one used by Sue Iremonger. She would have naturally assumed that it bore Toppy’s authentic signature as it was from a reliable source. However as we have seen reliable sources are not always reliable.

[Lechmere]

Now let’s have a look at Toppy’s marriage certificate from the parish records.

And compare it to the bits we can stick together from the version Sam Flynn obtained.

They are quite different.
It is clear from the parish record that H H Brown (the Vicar, Rector, Curate or whatever he was) did not fill out the main body of the parish record. That is in a neat precise script.
However I believe Brown completed the fake copy in full.

[Lechmere]

To hammer home the point here are another two marriage certificates relating to the same marriage.
One is from Parish records and the other from the General Register Office
Again it is abundantly clear that both were compiled at the same time and both were signed by the bride and groom and the Rector and the two witnesses – all of whom are literate this time.
Again I am certain that the Rector, John Draper, did not complete the general parts of the certificates. One of his clerks would have filled the form in ready for the wedding party and the Rector to sign after the exchange of vows.
This time the example is for the wedding of one of Charles Allen Lechmere’s sons – Thomas Allen Lechmere.
This Thomas Allen Lechmere died in the Bethnal Green Tube disaster in 1943, alongside two young Hutchinson infants who I have a hunch were Toppy’s grandchildren.
Here is the parish record.

And here is the version from the GRO.

You might notice that Charles Allen Lechmere (as a witness) signed his middle name differently on each certificate.
Also I am not certain that the Rector signed both – the signatures seem too different although the rest of the writing and the other signatures do match on each document.

This categorically shows us that the GRO copies are originals, signed by the participants - not office copies compiled later by clerks as Sally seemed to think for some reason.

[Lechmere]

Sally raised a couple of issues relating to the difference between copies of marriage certificates.
There are basically three sources for obtaining old marriage certificates.
1). From local parish records (now available on-line via Ancestry)
2). From the local register office (e.g. Tower Hamlets Register Office).
3). From the General Register Office.

The copy that Sam Flynn obtained was said to be from the National Archives, by which I presume he means from the General Registry Office. This would also be the ‘normal’ manner in which someone would obtain a copy of a marriage certificate in the pre-internet era.

What is the difference between the various copies?
None really.
They were all written out and signed at the time of the ceremony.
It was never the case that just one copy was written out – for example the parish register copy, and then clerks copied from that – as Sally seems to imagine.

At least one other copy was produced which was forwarded to the relevant local authority – which varied depending on what year the event happened, as local government developed.

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets, as the successor body for the various parishes and boroughs that made up the East End actually holds the physical certificates and copies can be obtained from them.

If you compare one of these certificates with a parish record version of the same certificate then it can instantly be seen that both were compiled at the same time yet were subsequently held at two different locations.

I am unsure whether the copy held at the General Register Office is a copy of the one held by the local authority or whether it is a third copy that was compiled at the time. Tower Hamlets has told me that the General Register Office holds a facsimile of the original that they hold, but I am not 100% convinced that this is the case.
In any event, the copy held by the General Register Office most certainly is not a copy that was re-written by someone else. At the very least it is an exact facsimile of the copy held by the local authority.

With record keeping sometimes people make mistakes or take short cuts. To cover up the error they may make things up, they might bend the rules or cheat a little.
Hence if an error was made during the signing at the actual wedding, then I am sure from time to time that someone else altogether will have written one of the copies of the certificate out in full.
Just as if a policeman neglected to get his witness to sign every sheet of paper, then sometimes it will happen that the policeman will ‘provide’ the missing signature.
These naughty things happen in the real world.

To prove my point – hopefully to Sally’s satisfaction - I will reproduce some certificates I have from various sources to illustrate how the process was conducted:

Firstly here are two versions of Charles Allen Lechmere’s marriage certificate - which I happen to have about my person.
The first pink version is from the Parish records.

The second version is from Tower Hamlets Register Office

The two are very clearly not the same document but are also both very clearly original and both are signed by Charles Allen Lechmere and signed by the vicar (everyone else was illiterate).
The general information was completed by the same person on both documents although if you look closely there are differences in the composition of certain words or letters.

Look at Lower Gun Alley and the middle name of Allen in Charles Allen Lechmere’s father’s name or the B of Batchelor. These differences naturally occur in most people’s handwriting.

However I doubt that the vicar compiled it – he will almost certainly have had a clerk who did this sort of donkey work.
The vicar was James Maconechy of Balliol College, Oxford.

[Marlowe]

Mal,

Go to the "Hutch in the 1911 Census?", and go to post 73.

Sam Flynn broke apart the three witness signatures that, at first glance, look so different from each other. But, by breaking them apart, he demonstrated that all three were made by the same hand.

However, when Toppy's signature is added to the list, some differences appear...in my opinion.

So, I believe that the witness DID sign all three pages, but whether or not that witness was Toppy is still debatable.

Marlowe

[The Good Michael]

malcolm,

You're falling for tha BS that was thrown around last time. A document examiner is useful when detecting forgeries. In the case of looking at normal signatures, Sam was as good an expert as any, as are you and I. If we have reason to believe someone was purposefully disguising signatures so that they could trick us 120 years in the future, by all means bring someone in. Until then, my eyes are as good as any others.

Mike

[Malcolm X]

yea dont bother, because this conversation is a waste of time right now.

this is quite easy to solve, these signatures need to be checked by at least 6 professionals, forget Sue Iremonger, one persons opinion isn't nearly enough

Sam Fynn ?...... now with all due respect, he was no professional either

[Marlowe]

Hi Good Michael,

I said Sam Flynn proved it -- I didn't say he proved it to himself!! ;-)

And as to me going back and re-reading ANY of that...well let's not get carried away, shall we...

Marlowe

[The Good Michael]

Marlowe,

If you go back and read that thread through about page 30 (and keep your lunch down) I think Sam (Gareth) came to the conclusion that the only suspocious signature was the first one and it was because the 'H' was vastly different, though the 'utchinson' was similar enough. Iremonger compared that signature with Sgt Badham's and found them to be consistent. If I recall, Gareth concurred that the signature was fairly likely to have been Badham's and it did make sense. That is the last I want to say on that. If you read through and find me wrong about Sam's opinion, let me know.

Mike

[Marlowe]

All three were from the same hand. Sam Flynn pretty much proved that some time ago. In my opinion, there's no question about it.

Now, this leaves us with two questions:

(1) Were they from Toppy's hand?
(2) Why were they so different from each other?

As to why they were so different: at best, Hutchinson was very nervous. At worst...well, I can only guess what Flora Schreiber might have said. :-0)

Marlowe

[Sally]

Sally,

If you go here and look at JMenges post, you'll see what was said about the statement signatures.

To be brief, a handwriting analyst said that the first signature (page 1) was done by Sgt Badham. Why? Probably as an afterthought because he forgot to have it signed.

Unfortunately, there is no answer to why, only surmise. It suffices that the last two signatures are sufficently similar to GWTH's that this combined with the fact that there are no other candidates from the same area (East End) of similar ages who come close to matching signatures, makes this GWTH a shoo-in as the witness until someone can disprove it. That doesn't seem a likely occurence.

Mike

PS. Sorry Lechmere for replying. I hope I said about what you would have.

Mike

Thanks for that. I'm more interested in the plausibility of this 'police officer signs on behalf of witness' scenario really. Seems intrinsically unlikely to me that a police officer would 'forget' to have a statement signed. I mean, there was plenty of time to correct the error wasn't there?

It's an aside, that's all, one I can pursue myself.

[Malcolm X]

Oops! Forgot the link, but as Lechmere says, it was done to death and drove good people from the boards and included visitations by lunatics posing as document examiners. No names need to be mentioned.

Mike

yes i remember how bad it was, even i got totally sick of it, i dont think we want to do this all over again..... it just is not worth the grief