A closer look at George Hutchinson

[rjpalmer]

You are forgetting about the identical names on the witness testimony and Toppings marriage certificate, Jeff.

Identical?

Didn't Toppy sign his marriage certificate as George William Topping Hutchinson, while the witness signed his name George Hutchinson?

I'm willing to walk with you part way, Christer--and admit to similarities--but one shouldn't overstate the case.

[Fisherman]

Identical?

Didn't Toppy sign his marriage certificate as George William Topping Hutchinson, while the witness signed his name George Hutchinson?

I'm willing to walk with you part way, Christer--and admit to similarities--but one shouldn't overstate the case.

Both were called George Hutchinson. Those are identical names. Whether or not the witness had other names than George Hutchinson is written in the stars.

You are reaching, R J.

And I am tired. So I am off for now. If you want to impress me tomorrow, you need to do a lot better than you have done today.

[JeffHamm]

You are forgetting about the identical names on the witness testimony and Toppings marriage certificate, Jeff. I know that there must always be a possibility that a document examiner is wrong. But I also know that when not only the writing style but also the names are similar, that kind of proves that we are dealing with the same man.

Why would they even compare them if the names weren't the same? That's sort of a starting condition, it's not further evidence the two are the same person as the alternative is that we have two people with similar names. And that's the question that we're trying to answer: Are these two documents, signed with similar names, signed by the same person or by two different people with similar names?

- Jeff

[Fiver]

If, as you say, a jury would have to admit that there must be a one per cent chance that two signatures deemed similar were by different hands, then the matter of how both men in our case also happened to use the exact same name when signing would put that self same jury at rest. It would go from a nearly certain call to a very certain one.

Leander clearly said there was not enough evidence to draw any conclusions about the signatures and that there were several significant differences. That wouldn't even make it to a jury, let alone be presented as something that was beyond a reasonable doubt.

[Sam Flynn]

Only one person has claimed to be a descendant of George Hutchinson.

By contrast, there were two claimants swearing to be one of the surviving twins in the Tower--Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel--and several claiming their ancestor was Mary Kelly.

What a bizarre comparison!

[Sam Flynn]

Yes, but using the 'same name' argument as Christer is doing is circular.

It isn't circular as far as I can see. If we were dealing with a "John Smith" I might be more worried, but we're not.

[Sam Flynn]

I once snipped the following men out of the 1911 UK Census just for jolly, making sure they were all born 1855 +/- 10 years.

Did they all live in or around South East London in the late 1880s/early 1890s, have family connections near Romford, and/or marry a girl from Bethnal Green?

[Fisherman]

Why would they even compare them if the names weren't the same? That's sort of a starting condition, it's not further evidence the two are the same person as the alternative is that we have two people with similar names. And that's the question that we're trying to answer: Are these two documents, signed with similar names, signed by the same person or by two different people with similar names?

- Jeff

The names being the same is of course why the comparison is made. But you seem to think that this dissolves the value of the correlation, and that the one point of comparison is the similarity in style. That is not so. What you need to consider is not one similarity, it is two.
They had the same name.
They wrote in a similar fashion.
Take away any one of these matters, and you have no strong case at all - in fact, if we take away the similarity in writing style, there is no case at all, but instead evidence of a non-correlation. And we know that there were a number of George Hutchinsons about in London, many more in the country - and that the name could have been an invention, so if we only have the name similarity, we have a very weak and unprovable case.
Once we have BOTH matters, that all changes totally, and we have what must be regarded as a more or less watertight case.

[Fisherman]

Leander clearly said there was not enough evidence to draw any conclusions about the signatures and that there were several significant differences. That wouldn't even make it to a jury, let alone be presented as something that was beyond a reasonable doubt.

I know what Leander said, and what he felt about the matter. I spoke to him. And he was adamant that for techical reasons (just the one signature by the witness) he could not grade the comparison very high - but he felt convinced that any forthcoming evidence would strengthen the deal. At the end of the day, we can all see how the two signatures are a very close match, although I am of course aware of how somebody - like Ben, for example - could say that the signatures were in his view no more similar than black and white is.
That is why we have Frank Leander to turn to.
PS. In telling us that Leander pointed out that there were differences, it seems you forgot to tell us that he also pointed out that the two signatures were similar enough to produce a hit on the scale of similarities. He also added that the fact that he only had one signature from the witness, meant that he was unable to grade it any higher.

Maybe you should mention that too, so as not to get things very wrong?

[JeffHamm]

The names being the same is of course why the comparison is made. But you seem to think that this dissolves the value of the correlation, and that the one point of comparison is the similarity in style. That is not so. What you need to consider is not one similarity, it is two.
They had the same name.
They wrote in a similar fashion.
Take away any one of these matters, and you have no strong case at all - in fact, if we take away the similarity in writing style, there is no case at all, but instead evidence of a non-correlation. And we know that there were a number of George Hutchinsons about in London, many more in the country - and that the name could have been an invention, so if we only have the name similarity, we have a very weak and unprovable case.
Once we have BOTH matters, that all changes totally, and we have what must be regarded as a more or less watertight case.

Hi Fisherman,

The similarity in the names is what forms the question being asked, it's not part of the "answer". Again, the question is "Are these two documents signed by the same person or two different people with similar names". That's the question being addressed; the similarity in the names is part of the question, not a portion of the answer. Name similarity is not evidence they are the same person, it just opens the possibility they are, but since they might not be, we are at the baseline point of either/or. Just because if they are the same person that fits with the same name doesn't add to the probability over and above the initial starting point. But if you just mean it's more likely that two similar names arise from the same person than two dissimilar names, then ok, but we're past that point. We're wondering if these two similar names are, or are not, refering to the same person, or two different people with similar names. As you yourself point out, there were a number of George Hutchinsons in London at the time, so two different people with similar names is a very real possibility.

As for the similar handwriting, simply being similar is not surprising, given they would be of similar ages (if, of course, it's two different people), and so would have learned the same handwriting styles. My Mum and her sisters all have very similar handwriting, and if I showed non-experts letters written by different sisters I'm sure many of us would think they were written by the same person. But similar to the untrained eye is not evidence, it would require a proper analysis. And as the handwriting expert has indicated, a proper analysis cannot be conducted on images, they need to have the original material for comparison. He even states that explicitly when he says:

"In conclusion, you must see this as a spontaneous, personal comment from me and not as a full expert opinion, since such things cannot be done from a material like this!" (bold and underling added by me for emphasis)

As such, we do not have an expert opinion to guide us and should be wary of promoting ourselves to expert status!

I personally have no opinion on the matter one way or the other, nor would knowing alter anything significant about issues that I have opinions and views upon. However, I do like to know things and see questions of any nature matched up with answers, so I think it would be great if the original materials could be provided to a few different handwriting experts in order to obtain a number of opinions. Then we would either end up with a strong consensus one way or the other, or end up with a split decision. The latter, I fear, would probably be our result, and that would be a great shame, and yet seems to be the way of things JtR.

- Jeff

[Fisherman]

Hi Fisherman,

The similarity in the names is what forms the question being asked, it's not part of the "answer". Again, the question is "Are these two documents signed by the same person or two different people with similar names". That's the question being addressed; the similarity in the names is part of the question, not a portion of the answer. Name similarity is not evidence they are the same person, it just opens the possibility they are, but since they might not be, we are at the baseline point of either/or. Just because if they are the same person that fits with the same name doesn't add to the probability over and above the initial starting point. But if you just mean it's more likely that two similar names arise from the same person than two dissimilar names, then ok, but we're past that point. We're wondering if these two similar names are, or are not, refering to the same person, or two different people with similar names. As you yourself point out, there were a number of George Hutchinsons in London at the time, so two different people with similar names is a very real possibility.

As for the similar handwriting, simply being similar is not surprising, given they would be of similar ages (if, of course, it's two different people), and so would have learned the same handwriting styles. My Mum and her sisters all have very similar handwriting, and if I showed non-experts letters written by different sisters I'm sure many of us would think they were written by the same person. But similar to the untrained eye is not evidence, it would require a proper analysis. And as the handwriting expert has indicated, a proper analysis cannot be conducted on images, they need to have the original material for comparison. He even states that explicitly when he says:

"In conclusion, you must see this as a spontaneous, personal comment from me and not as a full expert opinion, since such things cannot be done from a material like this!" (bold and underling added by me for emphasis)

As such, we do not have an expert opinion to guide us and should be wary of promoting ourselves to expert status!

I personally have no opinion on the matter one way or the other, nor would knowing alter anything significant about issues that I have opinions and views upon. However, I do like to know things and see questions of any nature matched up with answers, so I think it would be great if the original materials could be provided to a few different handwriting experts in order to obtain a number of opinions. Then we would either end up with a strong consensus one way or the other, or end up with a split decision. The latter, I fear, would probably be our result, and that would be a great shame, and yet seems to be the way of things JtR.

- Jeff

Wrong. The name similarity very much belongs to the answer. No smoke screen can dissolve that fact. We have two (2) similarities, the names and the writing styles. And as I pointed out before, they are both essential to close the case.

You repeat what I already told you when saying that name correlation is not evidence of the same person. Of course it is not. And of course, nobody is saying that it is, making your point moot. What I am saying is that if we find that two people who have the same name MAY be the same person, then checking this by way of a writing style comparison is a very good way to go about it. Once we get a hit there, we have a closed case.

You also repeat what I have already said many times, that Leander said that the material he got was too small to give a full expert opinion. What needs to be added to this is that even if the two signatures had been exactly alike, involving very odd things and the exact same pressure applied to the pen, Leander would still not be able to say anything more than that it is a hit on the lower end of the scale. That does not boil down to the signatures being in any way dissimilar, it instead boils down to the legal requirements for a comparison, stating that there must be at least ten examples of each persons writing, and we only have the signature in the witnesses case. But as I have pointed out, Leander was able to tell that he expected that any forthcoming material would only strengthen the case. In other words, a document examiner may feel totally convinced that he is correct, but he cannot say that he is as long as he does not have the required amount of material to legally argue the case.

And how do you treat all of this? Answer: You treat it by saying that I should not elevate myself to expert status. Which was the exact thing I never did What I did was instead was to take the matter as far as it can be taken, I contacted a man who IS an expert and who gave his opinion, adding professionally that it was not a FULL expert opinion. This you turn into saying that it was no expert opinion at all.

Good to know how you reason, Jeff!

[The Rookie Detective]

The handwriting angle is rather interesting, but dare I say, impossible to unravel


For example; we are all familiar with this...



The Maybrick "k"


But how common was this?


I asked this question on another thread but it received minimal response.

How common were individual letters of the alphabet in common writing form at that time?


The "pp" in the topping signature for me is the most compelling, as it seems virtually identical to the "pp" in Jack's signature.



Thoughts?


RD

[caz]

The names being the same is of course why the comparison is made. But you seem to think that this dissolves the value of the correlation, and that the one point of comparison is the similarity in style. That is not so. What you need to consider is not one similarity, it is two.
They had the same name.
They wrote in a similar fashion.
Take away any one of these matters, and you have no strong case at all - in fact, if we take away the similarity in writing style, there is no case at all, but instead evidence of a non-correlation. And we know that there were a number of George Hutchinsons about in London, many more in the country - and that the name could have been an invention, so if we only have the name similarity, we have a very weak and unprovable case.
Once we have BOTH matters, that all changes totally, and we have what must be regarded as a more or less watertight case.

I would want to see verifiable signatures for every George Hutchinson alive at the right time, and only then, if the similarities between Toppy's and Hutch's stood out a mile from all the others, would I be happy to conclude that this was the same George Hutchinson. It wouldn't matter where they all lived, because the object of the exercise would simply be to see how many of the signatures - if any - had similar similarities, as it were, to each other as the two in question have. We could in theory end up with a number of apparent matches that were provably nothing of the kind.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

The handwriting angle is rather interesting, but dare I say, impossible to unravel


For example; we are all familiar with this...



The Maybrick "k"


But how common was this?


I asked this question on another thread but it received minimal response.

How common were individual letters of the alphabet in common writing form at that time?


The "pp" in the topping signature for me is the most compelling, as it seems virtually identical to the "pp" in Jack's signature.



Thoughts?


RD

Hi Rookie,

I'm not sure the Maybrick 'k' is relevant, because whoever put it in the watch - and some believe this was not until May 1993 - wanted it to be seen as a genuine James Maybrick signature, and the individual letters would have been formed on that basis, regardless of how those same letters might have been formed by the average Victorian.

Love,

Caz
X

[Fisherman]

I would want to see verifiable signatures for every George Hutchinson alive at the right time, and only then, if the similarities between Toppy's and Hutch's stood out a mile from all the others, would I be happy to conclude that this was the same George Hutchinson. It wouldn't matter where they all lived, because the object of the exercise would simply be to see how many of the signatures - if any - had similar similarities, as it were, to each other as the two in question have. We could in theory end up with a number of apparent matches that were provably nothing of the kind.

Love,

Caz
X

In theory, anything can happen. In the real world, it is a different story. The George Hutchinsons of victorian days were just as likely or unlikely to write like siamese twins as we are today, I’ d say. I would welcome an investigation into the matter, since I think it will prove that point.