George William Topping Hutchinson Records

[Lechmere]

I am piecing together records relating to Toppy to see how plausible it is that he could have been a groom-come-labourer in the Victoria Home in 1888.
Here is his first entry at Tuscan Street in the 1910-11 Electoral Register. I haven't been able to find him at any other address in the electoral register so far which suggests he moved about quite a lot.

[Lechmere]

The entry for 14 Tuscan Street did not change until 1918 by which time women were given the vote so his wife Florence Beatrice also appears.
The Hutchinson’s shared no 14 with the Spearey family. Clearly they were not that well off. In the Booth poverty map it is light blue – which means poor.

[Lechmere]

Spring 1921 and the first appearance of George William Hutchinson junior – the eldest son who was born in November 1898. He could have been on the register in 1920 as it was open to male residents over 21.
The Spearey family is still there.

[Lechmere]

1923 and the Speareys have gone. No 14 is now shared with the Tidiman family

[Rubyretro]

Thanks for this, Lechmere -not least because, while looking to pinpoint Tuscan Street, I came across this fab looking café ! definitely a destination for my next trip to London !

https://www.classiccafes.co.uk/Pelliccifeature.htm

Sadly, I suppose that the name 'Tuscan Street' and Pellicci coming from Tuscany must be a coincidence ....it would have been lovely, if otherwise...

Still, it's one of the 'Joys Of Casebook' that you get sidetracked into interesting discoveries.

ps : I will reply to your post when I've explored it a bit...I'd really love to know more about the Spearey family though. Do you know anything about
them ? Or the Tidimans ?

[Lechmere]

I used to use Pellici’s some years ago but when I’m passing I never feel the urge to go back to be honest. It is well known as an old Kray haunt.
There used to be two Pellici cafe’s a couple of doors apart but now there is only one.
Tuscan Street was right down the other end of Bethnal Green. It is under Morpeth School now.
I think it got bombed in the war – I know that the door numbers stopped at no. 12, if I remember correctly, in the post war electoral registers.

I have no idea who the Speareys were – and I’m not going to start looking! It is a side track of a side track.
Unconnected people used to ‘share’ houses – a floor each.

[Lechmere]

1928 George William junior has gone and no other children are listed.

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE]

I used to use Pellici’s some years ago but when I’m passing I never feel the urge to go back to be honest.

Tell me 'why' ? (you're going to ruin it for me now, aren't you!)

[QUOTE]

I have no idea who the Speareys were – and I’m not going to start looking! It is a side track of a side track.
Unconnected people used to ‘share’ houses – a floor each.

Certainly, I think that it's a 'sidetrack' -because I don't think that Toppy was
either the 'innocent witness' nor the 'witness/killer'. I'm just interested by
having a better idea about how Toppy was placed in society by knowing more about the standing of the people that he shared a house with : who rented the house in whose name, their jobs..the 'set up' in general.
Did he 'share' a house, or rent one floor in a house divided into seperate lodgements ?

Of course, if I thought that Toppy really was the witness, or even the witness/JTR then I'd be doubly interested to know who those families were, since they might hold old letters and/or family 'gossip' about Toppy -who surely might have talked to people that he lived with/next to on a daily basis ? Bearing in mind that the 'events' were not a long time before.

[Lechmere]

I didn’t really want to say why I didn’t feel like going back as it might be unkind, but as you have forced me, the food wasn’t much cop! Happy Days (Goulston Street) is good.

Actually you have something there Miss Retro – the possibility of independent corroboration that is not dependent on the Radio Times. Maybe Toppy was a tiresome old bore who regaled his neighbours with talks of the A-man! And we have two families – the Speareys and the Tidimans to go on!

From people I know who lived in these shared houses, the families used to live on separate floors but there wouldn’t have been secure internal doors separating the ‘apartments’. Don’t forget people used to leave their front doors open in those days!

If you follow some of these households from year to year to year, there tends to be a primary family – in the case of 14 it is the Hutchinsons.
But I have noticed with a different address that I am interested in when the primary family eventually left, the secondary family became the primary family for that address (if you can follow that).

[Lechmere]

1931 first appearance of Clara Adelaide Hutchinson.
The Representation of the People Act 1918 gave the vote to women over 30.
Under the Representation of the Peoples Act 1928, women over 21 got the vote.

[Lechmere]

1935 Clara Adelaide Hutchinson has gone.

[Lechmere]

1936 now we have Mary Hutchinson - I am only reproducing registers where there is a change. I find it odd that only one of the children at a time appears on the electoral register.
The Tidimans seem to have gone and they seem to have the house to themselves at last.

[Lechmere]

1937 – and at last we have Reg! (And an interloper Thomas Brandon)

[Lechmere]

1938 – The end of an era. How poignant, Reg but no George William Topping.

[Archaic]

Hi Lechmere.

Thanks very much for posting these records. I like Ruby's idea of trying to find out what stories the Speareys or the Tidimans might have heard.

Best regards,
Archaic