Was Lech known as Cross at Pickfords??

[Abby Normal]

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.

Thanks Lech and Fish for the details!

[Lechmere]

Sally
You’re denial holds as much water as you insistence that you are not interested in suspect based ‘Ripperology’ while you obsessively inhabit the various Charles Lechmere threads.

[Sally]

Sally
You’re denial holds as much water as you insistence that you are not interested in suspect based ‘Ripperology’ while you obsessively inhabit the various Charles Lechmere threads.

You think? Ah well, at least it holds more water than your contention that Charles Cross was found crouching over the body of Nichols trying to conceal her wounds, eh?

And you are quite wrong, I'm afraid. I'm not interested in suspect-chasing at all. In my view it leads to blindness, and that is counter-productive to progres. I'm interested in facts. When I see misrepresentation of facts, opinion dressed up as fact, I am liable to comment. Can't abide bullshit, I'm afraid.

It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with misrepresentation.

Now, if we're done?

[Debra A]

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.

Slightly off topic but I find it interesting that another person Baptisted later in life than babyhood had two different names. I remember Lechmere found Florence Jervis, wife of George William Topping Hutchinson was baptised as an adult and after she was married, but still used her maiden name at baptism...although she didn't really, as I discovered she wasn't born a Jervis, he was her stepfather.
I'm just wondering if there is some sort of clue to name changes recognised as official when there's a late baptism involved?

[Lechmere]

Sally
I am sure you know by now how the I correct information in those press reports came about as you follow the Cross/Lechmere threads obsessively.

[Lechmere]

Debra
Yes that her is business threw me for a short while.
From memory she was happy to adopt her step fathers name and did so consistently and then used a married name when not married - merely being 'shacked up'.
The Toppy family was somewhat loose in it's attitude to such things.
It is an interesting and I think informative contrast to how Charles Lechmere conducted himself.

[Debra A]

Debra
Yes that her is business threw me for a short while.
From memory she was happy to adopt her step fathers name and did so consistently and then used a married name when not married - merely being 'shacked up'.
The Toppy family was somewhat loose in it's attitude to such things.
It is an interesting and I think informative contrast to how Charles Lechmere conducted himself.

Lechmere, I remembered it as her using her stepfather's surname when her mother took up with Mr Jervis, marrying Toppy but then getting baptised with her stepfathers surname after her marriage to Toppy? Is that not right? I can't seem to find the thread again.
Anyway, I just wondered if it was some sort of way of changing your name or affirming which name you wanted to be known by etc., when older.

[Lechmere]

I can't remember - I will look later when I have a proper computer in front of me and not an I phone.
I am sure that in that day and age the various authorities took people at face value. That is not to say that people didn't have 'proper names' but they Gould adopt other names legitimately as we see in the Toppy story.

[Abby Normal]

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

Hi Fish and Lech
Given that Thomas Cross was still alive when Lech started work at Pickfords- what do you think of the possibility that Lech was still going by Cross as a last name (as evidinced by him being listed earlier as Cross in the 1861 census)when he started at Pickfords and therefore kept it Cross as a "work" name, eventhough he reverted to Lechmere after his stepfather died??

This could be a valid explanation of why he gave the police the name of Cross, especially if they found him at work. Afterall, prior to the inquest the only thing we really know that the police knew about him was that he was a carman, correct?

[Fisherman]

Abby:

"Given that Thomas Cross was still alive when Lech started work at Pickfords- what do you think of the possibility that Lech was still going by Cross as a last name (as evidinced by him being listed earlier as Cross in the 1861 census)when he started at Pickfords and therefore kept it Cross as a "work" name, eventhough he reverted to Lechmere after his stepfather died?? "

Let´s see here, am I reading you right; you say that he was born Lechmere, called himself Lechmere, got a stepfather named Cross, was baptized Lechmere a year later, somewhere along the line accepted the Cross, started working at Pickford´s as Cross´boy, called and signed himself Cross, and when Thomas Cross died, he reverted back to calling himself Lechmere and signed himself thus, whereas he kept the Cross name as a working identity. Would that be about correct?

Not impossible, of course - but improbable. If he chose to call himself Cross and sign himself Cross, why revert back for the signatures? It all sounds very complicated to me.
What did he call his wife? Mrs Cross? But they put Lechmere on the mailbox? And his kids, were they little Crosslings? If so, why send them to school under another name? Did they tell their friends to call them Cross, and that Lechmere was just something they carried around to keep the authorities happy?
And if this was so, and if he really, really wanted to be a Cross - why not change his name legally? It would have simplified matters very much.

Of course, there is also the possibility that he was called Lechmere by everybody, just as his wife and kids were, end of story. Not as interesting a scenario, of course, but when it comes to names, ordinary, law-abiding citizens with nothing to hide normally did just that. Llewellyn probably wasn´t Jimmy Sykes at the local pub, George Morrison would arguably have been George Morrison as he proceeded over his doorstep and kissed Mrs Morrison on her cheek and Robert Paul, I bet, was Robert Paul at work, at home, on picknicks, sea-voyages, in back alleys... Oh - and at the inquest.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Abby Normal]

Abby:

"Given that Thomas Cross was still alive when Lech started work at Pickfords- what do you think of the possibility that Lech was still going by Cross as a last name (as evidinced by him being listed earlier as Cross in the 1861 census)when he started at Pickfords and therefore kept it Cross as a "work" name, eventhough he reverted to Lechmere after his stepfather died?? "

Let´s see here, am I reading you right; you say that he was born Lechmere, called himself Lechmere, got a stepfather named Cross, was baptized Lechmere a year later, somewhere along the line accepted the Cross, started working at Pickford´s as Cross´boy, called and signed himself Cross, and when Thomas Cross died, he reverted back to calling himself Lechmere and signed himself thus, whereas he kept the Cross name as a working identity. Would that be about correct?

Not impossible, of course - but improbable. If he chose to call himself Cross and sign himself Cross, why revert back for the signatures? It all sounds very complicated to me.
What did he call his wife? Mrs Cross? But they put Lechmere on the mailbox? And his kids, were they little Crosslings? If so, why send them to school under another name? Did they tell their friends to call them Cross, and that Lechmere was just something they carried around to keep the authorities happy?
And if this was so, and if he really, really wanted to be a Cross - why not change his name legally? It would have simplified matters very much.

Of course, there is also the possibility that he was called Lechmere by everybody, just as his wife and kids were, end of story. Not as interesting a scenario, of course, but when it comes to names, ordinary, law-abiding citizens with nothing to hide normally did just that. Llewellyn probably wasn´t Jimmy Sykes at the local pub, George Morrison would arguably have been George Morrison as he proceeded over his doorstep and kissed Mrs Morrison on her cheek and Robert Paul, I bet, was Robert Paul at work, at home, on picknicks, sea-voyages, in back alleys... Oh - and at the inquest.

All the best,
Fisherman

Hi Fish
Thanks for the response.
I am suggesting that perhaps Lech kept using and still went by Cross at work, eventhough officially everywhere else he reverted to his "family" (biological)name Lechmere. It is a common practice still today where people who have been known professionally by one last name keep using that last name for work, eventhough there last name has "officially" changed (through marriage, etc).

Also, prior to this, I could easily imagine a scenario in which young Lech, still living under the auspices of his stepfather Cross, a policeman, would want to use that name for the purposes of finding/maintaining employment as being the son of a policeman would probably help in that regards. Especially, if said father/policeman, was actively helping him find employment.

We have no evidence that Lech presented himself to the police prior to the inquest, and that the only thing the police knew about him prior to the inquest was that he was a carman. Therefore, I would suggest that an equally valid explanation would be that the police went looking for him (as they did Paul), and only knowing his occupation, found him sometime prior to the inquest at his place of work,perhaps even the day of the inquest,which would explain why he was in his work clothes at the inquest. And since he was known at work as Cross,that is what name was used for the inquest and the police.

This might also help explain why little information(or care?) there seems to be about his home address re the inquest as the police knew where to find him and how to identify him-Cross, Carman at Pickfords.

[Lechmere]

Abbey

I originally assumed that Charles Lechmere had given his details to Mizen in which case had he been known as Cross at work, for the reason you gave, it would have been slightly understandable if he had given Cross as his name, given that he was on his way to work.
However it is clear that Charles Lechmere actually went to a police station at some time over the weekend and so it makes it much more likely that even if he was known as Cross at work, he would have given Lechmere as his name.
In Charles Lechmere we have a man who in a very precise and conscientious manner recorded himself in a wide variety of records, never missing a year in the electoral register despite moving five times, always getting his children officially baptised, having his children switching schools when he moved without them missing a single day of their education.
A man for whom we do not have the slightest scintilla of evidence to suggest he ever called himself Cross, turns up at a police station, almost certainly after the appearance of a newspaper story which places him as an unnamed man by a freshly slaughtered body, and he does not use the name that he so assiduously uses in every other of the very many occasions that he had to record his surname.
Even if he was indeed known as Cross at work, which I strongly doubt, it doesn’t make sense that he chose to give Cross as his name to the police.

I would suggest that it would have been impossible for the police to have found Charles Lechmere so quickly – without his name, address or place of work, or even reliable knowledge of his occupation. The newspaper report that ‘fingered’ him only appeared on Sunday late afternoon.
It took the police some time to track down Robert Paul and they had his name and the fact that he worked as a carman and was involved in carrying to Covent Garden.

Would Charles Lechmere have presented himself to the police somehow on Monday morning, on his way to work? This has to be counted as extremely unlikely.
He was supposed to have left the body on the Friday morning because he didn’t want to miss any work, so how likely would he have been to call into a police station on the way to work when he would have had the option of going there in his own time on the Sunday. That really doesn’t make any sense.
Or did the police go out looking for him on the Monday morning – in Bucks Row perhaps? Again given the time scales with the newspaper story only appearing the evening before this must be unlikely. Furthermore if this is how they found Charles Lechmere then why couldn’t they have found Robert Paul by the same expedient? They had to find his home address and raid him!
Yet clearly the Lloyds reporter managed to find Paul on the Friday and Saturday... which suggests that Paul was findable but that the police did not attempt to find him, and by implication Charles Lechmere also.

Lastly, the possibility has been raised that Charles Lechmere reported to the police on the Sunday evening but was only summonsed while at work on the Monday morning – by which time the police would have been aware of his workplace.
The main problem with this is that his work as a carman would have naturally taken Charles Lechmere from his depot, delivering goods and packages around the place – waiting long hours to be seen and so forth. He was due in work supposedly at 4 am. At what hour would a senior police officer arrive at the relevant station, review the file and decide that Charles Lechmere’s presence at the inquest that morning would be useful?
I will take it as read that summonses to inquests were issued in a flexible manner. But it would have to have been at about 7 am at the earliest. Then they would have to get to Pickfords. Almost certainly Charles Lechmere would be out on his deliveries and wouldn’t be back until after the inquest started.
The timelines don’t really add up to allow for Charles Lechmere to attend the inquest on the Monday morning unless he reported and was summonsed on the Sunday evening.
The second most likely scenario is that he reported on Saturday evening and that Paul’s newspaper interview was not a factor in motivating his appearance.

[Lechmere]

Toppy married Francis Jervis on 15th May 1898.
The marriage was witnessed by her parents – William and Clara Jervis
The parents are also listed on Francis’s belated baptism on 2nd April 1899.

But William Jervis only actually married Clara (Birkett) on 18th February 1912. She was a widow and her original maiden name was Davis.

In fact Francis Jervis was the daughter of Clara Birkett (formerly Davis) and Joseph Birkett.
Clara had married Joseph Birkett on 2nd March 1879.
William Jervis was her step father and she adopted his name.

[Fisherman]

Abby!

I concur very much with what Edward says about the chances that the police could have found and picked up Lechmere at Pickford´s by their own efforts.

In one passage, Edward writes:

"clearly the Lloyds reporter managed to find Paul on the Friday and Saturday... which suggests that Paul was findable but that the police did not attempt to find him, and by implication Charles Lechmere also."

In this context, we can look at what Dew wrote: "The police made repeated appeals for him to come forward, but he never did so."

In the end, this was wrong - Paul was forced out of his lair and was questioned by the police, plus he attended the inquest on the 17:th. But the more interesting thing here is that Dew writes that appeals were made; apparently that was how they went about things. They appealed - and to me, that sounds like they mailed him and asked him to contact them. And if this was their chosen way of approaching Paul, it sounds odd that they would have gone out of their way to find Lechmere in person. And even if they DID devote resources to do so, what would they be looking for? A man that could have been a carman and who in all probability worked west of Corbett´s court? That´s very little to go on, wouldn´t you say?

And why does not Dew mention the almighty search that must have been on for Lechmere? And why was not a similar search on for Paul? If they thought Lechmere of that monumental importance, then why did they settle for "appealing" only, when it comes to Paul? Since they had not spoken to any of them and would not know what they had to say, respectively, surely they would have been equally interested in both men?

Lechmere made his own way to the cop shop - the early inclusion of him at the inquest tells us that this must have been so. The possibility that the police searched him out on no description at all in the world´s largest city in a few hours´time is freakishly small.

All the best,
Fisherman

[Debra A]

Toppy married Francis Jervis on 15th May 1898.
The marriage was witnessed by her parents – William and Clara Jervis
The parents are also listed on Francis’s belated baptism on 2nd April 1899.

But William Jervis only actually married Clara (Birkett) on 18th February 1912. She was a widow and her original maiden name was Davis.

In fact Francis Jervis was the daughter of Clara Birkett (formerly Davis) and Joseph Birkett.
Clara had married Joseph Birkett on 2nd March 1879.
William Jervis was her step father and she adopted his name.

Thanks, but I know that. I told you about her being born a Birkett, I found the thread yesterday.
I was more interested in whether in those days late baptism was some sort of ceremony where names could be changed and birth names added/removed?

Toppy's wife was baptised after she had married Toppy, so legally her surname was now Hutchinson but she was baptised with her old name (that of her stepfather) Jervis and not the name she was obviously going to
under now-Hutchinson-do you see what I mean?