Hutchinson The Sailor Man

[The Good Michael]

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because the priority is getting these signatures checked first


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Your priority Malcolm. I'm already sure about them

Mike

[lynn cates]

arguable

Hello Lechmere. What? An argument about Hutch's handwriting? Don't be absurd! (heh-heh)

Cheers.
LC

[Lechmere]

I'd rather keep the different aspects to different threads as they get long and you can't check back very easily - I will start a thread about Ruby Retros Hutchinson the Publican's son soon - and when I have enough handwriting samples I will start a handwriting thread.
I don't think the handwriting analysis will prove to be conclusive - it will all be arguable I think.

[Malcolm X]

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please carry on, but i'm just saying dont drag H onto too many threads, because it's too much to keep a track of, as well as the apron and Stride too.

as for H as JTR, again lets try not to discuss this yet, because this is so damned complicated and we are not really ready for this yet

because the priority is getting these signatures checked first



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[Lechmere]

For the identification of Hutchinson the Sailor with the Hutchinson who presented himself to Commercial Street Police Station, some might cling to the strict upbringing on the Training Ship Exmouth and subsequent naval discipline as contributing towards a ‘military appearance’.
Those who like Hutchinson as the culprit might like the connection to the purported ‘sailor suspect’.

However if Hutchinson the Sailor was Hutchinson the innocent witness, then what was he doing at the Victoria Home and why did he describe himself as a sometime groom and labourer?
From what we can discern he will have left the Exmouth and signed up immediately with the Royal Navy or the Merchant Navy.
When on shore leave, his mother’s house in south London would appear to have been his port of call. Indeed that would be the most logical and sensible thing for him to do.
There is nothing to put him back in the East End.

For Hutchinson the Sailor to be Hutchinson the Ripper, he would have had to deliberately chose to go to the East End in preference to his mother’s house, presumably for the express purpose of committing the crimes. He will have had to have had an extended period of shore leave – from August to November and used that time to take on casual work as a groom and labourer.
It might be objected that maybe he didn’t really work as a groom or labourer at all, but I would suggest that this is unlikely as I am certain that he would have been ‘checked out’ by the police and that would have included asking who his most recent employers were. They would also have asked where his family were from. He could have lied about that but it would have been dangerous.

The Hutchinsonites claim that his police interview was forced upon him by Lewis’s testimony at the inquest. Either he heard her inquest description of the wide-awake man or he saw her go in or come out of Shoreditch Town Hall and took fright.
But why did he then do a press interview or interviews? This is actually one of the implausible aspects of Hutchinson as the culprit.
The press interview could have included a detailed description of him. Coupled with his name – George Hutchinson – this could have alerted his mother and brother.

A contemporary sketch picture of Hutchinson also appeared. Some claim that the picture was from life or at least was a genuine likeness. If true this would also have alerted his mother and brother. I am personally of the opinion that it is a generic image, but in giving pres interviews how was Hutchinson to know that the journalist would not have been accompanied by an illustrator?

There are so many implausibilities in the Hutchinson the Sailor being the culprit, which when added to what I think are the existing implausibilities for the standard Hutchinson being the culprit, make his candidacy totally unrealistic.

There are a few other areas I can check with this Hutchinson, but compared to Toppy he is a very poor candidate for being the Hutchinson witness.

[Lechmere]

Malcolm I’m sorry of the Toppy records thread is complicated.
I presented the information as I obtained it, rather than obtaining the whole picture and putting it up in a more logical manner. I only knew the bare outlines of Toppy’s background and inevitably checking different leads led me off into different directions which complicated the picture. My main aim was to put all the information in one relatively easily accessible place, and to test various propositions that had been previously discussed concerning what was and what wasn’t plausible or likely respecting his movements.
Contrary to some people’s claims I did not have any particularly strong pre-conceived notions about what I would find and I have published everything I have found apart from a handful of documents which are not of massive significance and are out of sequence, but for the sake of completeness I will put up at some point.
I think the records largely speak for themselves. If they had tended to totally discount Toppy as the witness, then I would still have put up whatever I had found.

Marlowe asked me to look at Hutchinson the Sailor.

[Sally]

Pardon me...

.. for asking - but I always thought that Hutchinson was a groom, now a labourer (gen.). No?

No mention of sailors. Nor indeed, of plumbers.

Just saying.

[Fleetwood Mac]

Lechmere,

Good work.

Of course this man would have a motive lacking with Toppy in my view: cast suspicion away from a sailor. This alone would make him a more credible JTR than Toppy (not taht I'm saying that's particularly credible).

On the age point: people are quick to point out that Lawende may not have had such a good look at him, and that, supposedly, only one, if any, ever had a decent view of him. Hopefully, those people will be consistent with regard to JTR's age and the possibility of a 22 year old man.

I personally don't believe it was 'Hutchinson', but your 'Hutchinson' has a reason for coming forward, although admittedly I'm not convinced that a seaman would come forward: "what do you do for a living?", "Oh, I'm a seaman", "Interesting: you were hanging around last night, the last known person seen with Mary; and the last known person, dressed like a sailor, seen with Kate". Hmmm.

And, there's the signature aspect. Toppy's is a good fit. Although there's always room for a better fit to come along.

[Abby Normal]

Hi Lechmere
Wow-you are really digging some stuff up on Hutch (s). Keep up the good work.


When you have exhausted your searches, I would love to see your summary/conclusions if your so inclined. Thanks in advance.

[Malcolm X]

oh for God's sake, now this is starting to look very silly indeed, we havent finished with the other thread yet and that thread was also too complicated,
we now have this too.

[Lechmere]

The only other record I have currently for this family is Benjamin’s marriage certificate.
It is dated 6th June 1897.
The marriage took place in St Philip’s Church in Camberwell. This was on Avondale Square just off the Old Kent Road.
Benjamin Joseph Hutchinson was then a 24 year old vellum binder, the son of John William Hutchinson, a deceased cook.
He married someone called Elizabeth Palmer.
He lived at 24 Waite Street and she lived at 19 Waite Street. Waite Street is just the other side of the Old Kent Road from St Philip’s Church.

[Lechmere]

In 1891 the family partially reunited.
They are living in south London, in the Parish of Newington, which was part of the Parliamentary Division of Walworth. The Ecclesiastical Parish was St John’s.
They lived at 300 Munton Road.
This is just off the New Kent Road, quite near the Elephant and Castle.
Slightly surprisingly on the Booth map it is down as ‘Fairly comfortable – good ordinary earnings’.

There is no doubt that this is the correct household.
It consisted of:
Kezia Hutchinson - a widowed shirt maker, aged 51, born in Leytonstone.
George Hutchinson – her son, a seaman aged 25, born in Mile End.
Benjamin Hutchinson – another son, a vellum binder apprentice aged 18, born in Whitechapel.
George Hutchinson – another son, a scholar aged 9, born in Newington. This George Hutchinson is something of an oddity.

[Lechmere]

The older children dispersed.
In 1881 we find George on the training ship Exmouth in Grays in Essex on the Thames estuary.
He is a 15 year old pauper scholar.

The Exmouth was established in 1877 and was run by the Metropolitan Asylums Board to train destitute children from all over London.
This tells us that George almost certainly went to the Mile End Old Town workhouse and was forwarded from there to the Exmouth.
Mile End Old Town Workhouse can still be found on Bancroft Road, next to Tower Hamlets Local History Library. It is now called Mile End Hospital.
The Exmouth catered for children between the ages of 12 and 16 so presumably George went there in 1878 and left in 1882.

The children were given a general education and specific training in naval skills under conditions of strict Naval discipline.
Most of the children from the Exmouth went onto join the Merchant Navy or the Royal Navy.
The Exmouth was built in 1854 as a two deck man of war. She served in the Baltic during the Crimean War.

[Lechmere]

The death of John Hutchinson spelt disaster for his family.
By 1881 Kezia was with young Benjamin over the river in Bermondsey.
There were living at 21 Alexis Street which is just off Southwark Park Road, very near a market known as ‘The Blue’. Booth has it as a mixed area – some respectable some poor.

Kezia is now a 40 year old shirt maker and is listed as a widow from Leytonstone.
Benjamin is an 8 year old scholar, born in Mile End.
The rest of the family has dispersed – including young Emily. If she was still alive she would have been nearly eleven years old. Son James would have been just 13.

They had a boarder which would have helped with the bills – William Saunders, a printer compositor aged 19 from Limehouse.
The house was shared with another family – the Abbots. Another widow with four children. The eldest girl, aged 14, was a factory worker, the mother a needlewoman.

I suspect that William Saunders earned more than the rest of them put together.

[Lechmere]

Another son was born about this time – Benjamin Joseph, who was baptised on 15th December 1872.
The father – John – is for some reason listed as a labourer, although I think he was actually dead by this time. Baptismal records sometimes listed the name and occupation of the father even if he was dead.
The other interesting thing about this document is that it lists their abode as being 16 Mulberry Street which was very close to Little Alie Street but was within Mile End Old Town. This matches the record for John’s death.
The baptism took place at St Phillip’s Church which was on Oxford Street (now Stepney Way). The church is still there although it was rebuilt in 1892 and now houses the medical library for the Royal London Hospital.
Interestingly, the Royal London Museum is in the crypt and contains items relating to the Elephant Man and the Jack the Ripper case. I had no idea it was open to the public (Tuesday to Friday, 10 am-4.30 pm) and I will be getting down there soon!

When I was looking up this family’s details I found a reference stating that Benjamin was actually the son of someone called Thomas Weedon. This would suggest that Kezia was having an affair with Thomas Weedon. I didn’t do an exhaustive search but I couldn’t find a connection between Kezia Hutchinson and Thomas Weedon who had a separate family in Bethnal Green. Perhaps it is a family tradition of some sort.