George Hutchinson /Joseph Fleming ???

[Stevecollins501]

Please dont shoot me down in flames but is there anyway or has there been any way of accerting whether George Hutchinson and Joseph Fleming where in the Crossinghams Lodging House together at the same time in November 88 ...............Just wondering after listening again to the Hutchinson Podcast again and im sure I heard they were at the same lodging house so there must of been logs or registers .......Im new well a returning enthuasistic of the case so mya have some details incorrect ......Thanks ...

For me Hutchinson seems a very good suspect as he was seen opposite Millers Court at the time of the murders and looked very suspicious watching and waiting for someone/thing .......Also the 3 days after the murder did he come forward with his story and a massively over the top DETAILED description .....

[DVV]

Hi Steve
all we have is that Fleming was admitted to the Whitechapel Union Infirmary on 18 Nov 1889, due to an inflamed leg.
His address was then 41 Commercial Street (VH), and he had apparently settled in the parish of Whitechapel (or precisely at the VH ? - haven't my notes handy) 14 months ago.
So you're correct, Fleming was certainly dossing in Whitechapel in November 1888, most probably at the VH.

[Sally]

David, if Fleming was also Hutchinson and stayed at the VH from October 1888 or thereabouts; he was calling himself Hutchinson in November; and one must assume, when he began to doss there.

How do you account for the fact that he was apparently known as Fleming at the VH when he was admitted to the infrimary?

Just asking - for all I know they may be one and the same; but that scenario doesn't seem to work. He'd have had to have left the VH and come back again at a later date using the name Fleming and hoping that nobody there recognised him?

[DVV]

Hi Sally, I believe people were nothing but "numbers" (as Henry Moore said once to a French reporter) in lodging houses such as the VH.

[DVV]

He might have ceased to pass himself as Hutch after his involvement in the Kelly's case.
We don't know either why he called himself James Evans in 1892, but we know he did.

[Sally]

Yes, he might have stopped calling himself Hutchinson after his involvement with the Kelly case - but by then, everybody at the VH would have known him as Hutchinson.

So the point is, he couldn't have become Fleming again at the VH unless by absence from the VH. If he'd turned around at the VH a couple of months after November 1888 and announced that henceforth he wished to be known as Fleming, it would've raised a few eyebrows, surely?

[DVV]

So the point is, he couldn't have become Fleming again at the VH unless by absence from the VH. If he'd turned around at the VH a couple of months after November 1888 and announced that henceforth he wished to be known as Fleming, it would've raised a few eyebrows, surely?

Sally, we don't know where Fleming has lived between November 1889 and 1892. But you're correct in that he would have been known as Hutch at the VH after the Kelly case, during his brief period of fame.

[Stevecollins501]

I suppose also if as also said in the podcast that maybe JTR could have stayed in various Doss houses etc and mixed it up a bit as to never really getting attached to a certain place therefore never really getting known by anyone .....One of my reasonings behind Hutchinson/Fleming is because he really was a dodgy looking character opposite Millers Court ......

Another reasoning was also that the description by Sarah Lewis of we assume is Hutchinson/Fleming was of a Broad shouldered man also Matthew Packer at Berner Street not always the most accurate but described a broad shouldered man then theres James Brown in Fairclough Street seeing a Stoutish man with a long black coat same as Matthew Packer talking to Liz Stride....It must of been Hutchinson/Fleming opposite Millers Court as Lewis saw a man there and Hutchinson said it was him sort of by really owing up to it saying he was there .......The only downside is Hutchinson didnt mention Lewis in his evidence BUT saying that I have missed someone walk past when I have been looking at it and not even noticed them .......