Was Lech known as Cross at Pickfords??

[Mr Lucky]

Then, if it wasn´t - how did the Star reporter get it perfect - and why did the others miss out totally? Is it not true that the addresses are many, many times overheard erroneously by the reporters - but written down just the same? Why did not a single one of the other reporters get the address to at least SOME extent when the Star managed to get it spot on, letter for letter, number for number?

Hi Fisherman,

The journalist who are writing his name down, have missed Cross stating his address.

The Star journalist has chosen not to note his name, and instead has continued to listen to Cross, and has then heard and written down his address.

At the start of his testimony, we know Cross has given us the names of the following streets - Doveton street, Broad street, Parsons street, Brady Street, and Buck’s Row, not one paper gives us all of these. Why ?

Why do we have two different times Cross left home, twenty past three and half past three?

Is it not more useful to realize that the Star differed in BOTH respects visavi the other newspapers? They ALL had a name for him correctly heard or not, and NONE had the street. They are ALL in accordance, whereas ONE single paper is totally out of line with the others.

Here’s another single paper that is out of line with the others; the Daily Telegraph, the only newspaper that gives us the following little nugget-

‘Just then they heard a policeman coming.’ - Daily Telegraph 4th Sept. 1888

Where has this line come from, has the telegraph reporter asked someone ?

They asked, Mr Lucky. They did not hear, they asked, that´s why.

Who did they ask ?
Why did they ask ?
Why did no one else ask ?

And why didn’t they ask what his name was, while they were at it?

[Fisherman]

We are not going to get any further with this, Mr Lucky. As a professional journalist I can tell you that when a paper differs very much from all other papers, then that will almost invariably depend on the sources being different in some respect.
If ten papers report from a bankrobbery, and nine say that there were two robbers who got away with five millon pounds, whereas one paper says that there were three robbers who got away with three million pounds, then chances are that the reporter from the tenth newspaper has not had his information delivered in the same manner or from the same source as the other nine.

Other than that, I have nothing to add.

The best,
Fisherman

[Lechmere]

Mr Lucky
There is a fundamental difference between a reporter (or a host of reporters) missing a basic piece of information such as a witness's address, and garbling some of the evidence. This should be obvious.

[Lechmere]

I have already checked for Pickfords records and drawn a blank.
Private firms do not tend to devote resources to historical archives.
The National Archives are discriminating about what they accept and what they want to keep.
The London Metropolitan Archives holds mostly municipal or religious records for London– religious as the church used to be the only local authority in ‘the olden days’.
However it obviously does no harm for another search.

[Mr Lucky]

Mr Lucky
There is a fundamental difference between a reporter (or a host of reporters) missing a basic piece of information such as a witness's address, and garbling some of the evidence. This should be obvious.

Who’s garbling evidence ?

What is obvious is the fact that Cross has given his address at the inquest, and that’s why it’s in the star,

Once again -

‘Carman Cross was the next witness, he lived at 22 Doveton street’ - The Star 3rd Sept 1888

[Lechmere]

Mr Lucky
The Telegraph garbled the evidence, as you yourself highlighted:
‘Just then they heard a policeman coming.’ - Daily Telegraph 4th Sept. 1888.

This is quite different from every single newspaper failing to get a single detail of Charles Lechmere's address while the Star got it absolutely spot on.
It is an unconvincing argument to say that the Star journalist misheard his Christian names and that enabled him to hear and note the address.
His rival reporters had no difficulty noting the names and addesses of everyone else.

He would have given his details something like as follows:

My name is Charles Allen Cross.
I live at 22 Doveton Street.
I am a carman and have been working for Pickfords at Broad Street for over 20 years.

Or

My name is Charles Allen Cross.
I am a carman and have been working for Pickfords at Broad Street for over 20 years.

During the lunch recess and just prior to filing his story, the Star reporter then obtained his address from a policeman or clerk.
If this journalist had noted the Cross and carman bits then presumably he would just have asked the clerk or policeman for his addess and not bothered about asking for his correct Christian names as he had something noted for his name.
As a likely sequence of events that is not difficult to understand and it explains the state of information available to us.
It is obviously conjecture but it is conjecture that adds up.

[Sally]

Wrong!

Private firms do not tend to devote resources to historical archives.

No.

The National Archives are discriminating about what they accept and what they want to keep.

No.

The London Metropolitan Archives holds mostly municipal or religious records for London– religious as the church used to be the only local authority in ‘the olden days’.

No.

However it obviously does no harm for another search

Considering your obvious lack of knowledge in this area, I think that might be a good idea.

[Abby Normal]

Thanks for all the responses.
I think its crucial to find out if Lech was known as Cross or Lechmere at pickfords. To help figure this out-what are the answers to the following questions:

1. How old was Lech in Oct of 1888?
2. How old was Lech when his Stepfather (Cross) died (or left Lechs mother)?
3. When was the last time we know that Lech used the name Cross (I beleive it was a census)?

[Fisherman]

Hi Abby:

1. If his baptism record is correct, he would have turned 39 on the 5:th of October 1888, having been born in 1849.

2. Thomas Cross died December 18 1869, which would have Charles 20 years old. Thomas Cross himself was 34 when he passed away.

3. That´s the 1861 census you speak of - and we don´t know that he used the name Cross himself, since the census would have been filled in by his stepfather. Charles would have been in his pre-teens himself, eleven, going on twelve.

The questions you did not ask was when Lechmere was baptized - that took place in 1859 (on the 16:th of January), when he was nine, and his mother married Thomas Cross on the 25:th of February 1858, almost a year before that, upon which she took the name Cross - but a year later she baptized Charles by the name of Lechmere and not Cross.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Sally]

[QUOTE=Abby Normal;236927]I think its crucial to find out if Lech was known as Cross or Lechmere at pickfords. QUOTE]

Hi Abby

Whilst I think a thorough search of local archives for Pickfords records is worth doing, there are general survivability issues with some classes of privately held records which makes it more likely than not that they no longer exist.

Unless we are lucky, we may never be able to demonstrate through documentary sources whether Lechmere was known at Pickfords as Cross, or not.

[Lechmere]

On post 93 of the thread ‘Full notes on Charles Cross/Lechmere’ I reproduced the birth certificate for Charles Lechmere (5th October 1949) and the death certificate for Thomas Cross (aged 34 on 18th December 1869).
That makes Charles Lechmere 20 when his step father Thomas Cross died.
It makes Charles Lechmere 39 on 5th October 1888.

As Fisherman pointed out, so far as is known, the only instance when Charles Lechmere was listed as Charles Cross (apart obviously from when he presented himself at a police station after being found very close to the dead body of Polly Nichols) was in the 1861 census.
He was a child at the time and will have had no input into what he was called. The census entry for the family in which he was called Cross has other errors.
He was called Charles Lechmere when he was baptised in 1859. This was after his mother had remarried Thomas Cross. This is the only other record we have for him during his mother’s marriage to Thomas Cross.
Charles Lechmere’s life is remarkably well documented. He was a very precise and particular fellow. We have a total of about 90 records for him and his immediate family and they are always recorded as Lechmere.
He made some sort of mental slip when he went to the police station and called himself Cross.

The chances of Pickfords having any records are negligible and the chances of any Pickfords records being held by any public record service (such as the NA or LMA) are similarly negligible.

I have a new lead relating to Charles Lechmere to follow up at the Booth archive at the London School of Economics but I doubt that this will shed any light on the ‘Cross’ issue.

[Lechmere]

Sally you are the perfect illustration of how posters who get taken over by the adversarial nature of these forums and reflexively put up utter drivel in one post just to ‘oppose’, and then a moment later and with a total lack of self awareness, essentially agree with what you had earlier vehemently opposed.
Truly remarkable.

[Scott Nelson]

I thought I was that perfect illustration.

[Fisherman]

Balderdash, Scott - I don´t agree at all.

Or wait a minute, I think I do ...!

Fisherman

[Sally]

Sally you are the perfect illustration of how posters who get taken over by the adversarial nature of these forums and reflexively put up utter drivel in one post just to ‘oppose’, and then a moment later and with a total lack of self awareness, essentially agree with what you had earlier vehemently opposed.
Truly remarkable.

Not really Lechers. In any respect.

You flatter yourself if you imagine that anybody really cares enough to make a point of gratuitously opposing you. Such an imagination..