Romford

[Monty]

Alcoholic Caz?

Monty

[curious4]

Hutch

Didnīt he have relatives in Romford? Seem to remember reeading this somewhere. And people DID walk what we now would call long distances regularly.

As to walking the streets, it was against the law to sleep on the streets, so you either had the choice of walking round and round the streets or chancing that you would be moved on by any policeman who happened to pass by.

I remember this "walking the streets" being mentioned at Catherine Eddowes`inquest, when the coroner questioned Kelly as to whether she prostituted herself - obviously (I think) mixing up "walking the streets" with "street-walking".

Apologise if this has come up earlier in the thread - havenīt read throught the whole thing - sorry!

Best wishes,
C4

[Abby Normal]

And that is how any misgivings about any witness should be presented, not accompanied by full blown negative conclusions.
We have incomplete information, therefore, any conclusions we draw should be an either/or proposal.

Hutchinson's trip to Romford is of no consequence, he could have stepped off a banana boat for all the police care. What the authorities are interested in is when he arrived at the location, who he saw, what was said and any activities he witnessed.

However, because he did place himself at Kelly's door shortly before the murder took place, they certainly would have been interested in an alibi from Hutchinson which might account for his movements for the next few hours.
They would have been especially interested in this alibi IF they had any suspicions about him. And, because the police did not know him from Adam, certainly they had to check him out.

The fact the police did not haul him in within days of first meeting him strongly suggests all he told them checked out.
They had a potential killer in the palm of their hands, who placed himself at the crime scene by his own admission, in no way can we argue the police were so negligent to let him go if he had told any lies to them at all about anything that they considered significant.
That circumstance alone exonerates George Hutchinson from any wrong doing.

Question:
What did Kelly want 6d for at that time of night?

Regards, Jon S.

Hi Wicker

We have incomplete information, therefore, any conclusions we draw should be an either/or proposal.

That circumstance alone exonerates George Hutchinson from any wrong doing.

What happened to to your "either/or proposal"?

IMHO th only thing that could seem to exonerate GH is Abberlines initial impression, but that seems to have changed after a few days.

If evrything checked out with Hutch and he was telling no lies then surely he must be by far the best and most important witness in the JtR case?

Question:
What did Kelly want 6d for at that time of night?

But see this again depends on wether hutch is truthful or not. Apparently she had brought home a man with money earlier in the evening so maybe she did not go out again asking for money.

But if hutch was telling the truth-probably for rent money.

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE]

Didnīt he have relatives in Romford? Seem to remember reeading this somewhere.

No, Curious -we don't know anything about this George Hutchinson.

This story arises because George William Topping Hutchinson (known to us here as 'Toppy') -who some people believe to have been the witness- had a sister (Emily Jane) who lived in Essex.

However, although she was born in Hornchurch and died in Hadleigh, Essex, in 1886 she was married to a man in Lewisham, Kent.

I seem to remember that she lived nowhere near Romford in 1888.

Toppy's family were brought up in Norwood, Surrey, although to be fair he did die in Hornchurch, Essex.

I think that it's terribly easy to get carried away with this 'Essex' connection
-I know, since I was once a Toppy-believer and I used to read all sorts of things into the Essex 'thing'.

However, the truth of the matter is that Essex is practically an extension of the East end of London, and I wouldn't like to hazard a guess as to how many East Enders had family connexions in Essex (most of them, even ?).
I think that it's a non-starter to try and find any tangible family reason for
Hutchinson to go to Essex.

On the otherhand,I'm now going to quote a paragraph of Bob Hinton's book 'From Hell'. Whatever anyone may think of Bob's opinions on other matters, I think that we'd all agree that he's a first hand and first rate researcher and a very straight forward writer (none of that 'tricky-dicky-stuff) :

"1888 in Romford saw three main events that would explain why an out of work unskilled man would travel there. One was the sale of the Mawney Manor House Estate, which released 265 acres of development. Romford couldn't supply all the required labour so a lot came in from the outside, including the East End of London. The second was the opening of the Victoria Cottage Hospital in May 18888, and this too had provided work for East End men. Thirdly were the disastrous floods that practically wiped out the centre of Romford. These happened in August and so provided many more jobs well into the Autumn and Winter of 1888".

So Bob has given us some concrete reasons why Hutchinson the casual labourer might want to look for work in Romford -and any family connnections are pretty nebulous and hypothetical.

[Wickerman]

However, it was impossible to prove that A-Man existed except by the Police
finding him -and they apparently never did, despite the very detailed
description which could only point to one man (with that particular alliance of jewellery).

Agreed, and the suggestion by Hutchinson that he thought he saw him on Sunday morning could mean that this A-man was not dressed the same, Hutchinson was only going on facial appearances. We don't know, but that is what it could mean.
It would not be surprising after the 13th, especially, as his description was given all over the popular press. The police didn't really have alot of time to find this man, less than 12 hrs? (from Hutchinson going out Monday night until the Tuesday morning papers hit the streets) - thats not long for the police to look for one specific person.

It was also impossible to prove the "walking about all night" story for the crucial time of the murder.

That is what he told the press, we don't know what he told the police.
This is a crucial time period, can we honestly believe the police would just be satisfied with him not giving them an alibi?
Or, is it possible that they asked him where he went, who he saw, or who saw him, and they checked this out also?

There's so much we don't know.

Regards, Jon S.

[Wickerman]

What happened to to your "either/or proposal"?

Ah, you raised a good point, let me explain what I was meaning.

Hi Wicker

We have incomplete information, therefore, any conclusions we draw should be an either/or proposal.

Abby, I was expressing appreciation for you pointing out questionable details without jumping to negative conclusions. With such a deficiency of information we should always try to consider more than one option.

However, the rest of my post concerned the perspective of the police, and their apparent satisfaction with his story & demeanor, therefore I concluded...

That circumstance alone exonerates George Hutchinson from any wrong doing.

Sorry for not being clearer, and thanx for pointing that out. I didn't mean it exonerates Hutch in our mind, just in the mind of the police. But something we should make allowances for.

If evrything checked out with Hutch and he was telling no lies then surely he must be by far the best and most important witness in the JtR case?

Possibly, but what else could he do?
The police had a more than satisfactory description to go on, all the manpower required, and an ongoing list of suspect descriptions from all the previous murders.
If Astrachan changed his appearance due to the sudden publicity, then what were they left with?

"Description age about 34 or 35. height 5ft6 complexion pale, dark eyes and eye lashes slight moustache, curled up each end, and hair dark,..."

That is not alot to go on in an overpopulated district like Whitechapel.

Regards, Jon S.

[Raoul's Obsession]

Having read "Down and out in Paris and London' by George Orwell recently, it got me thinking about the Romford statement. While Orwell is admittedly writing over 30 years after Hutch, he details the practice of moving from one workhouse to the next, night after night - a practice that I understand was already underway in Hutch's day, as a result of the legislation regarding admittance to the casual wards. Romford did have a workhouse - perhaps it was simply a one night stop because he was broke? That said - it doesn't tie in well with his statement 'I've spend all my money going down to Romford'.

regards

Raoul

[Monty]

Abby,

It seems Abberline changed his impression of Hutchinson?

Pray tell, how do you figure that one out?

Monty

[harry]

Jon,
"Theres so much we don't know".How true,and one thing we don't know,is whether Hutchinson was in Romford at the time he claimed.

[Rubyretro]

If Astrachan changed his appearance due to the sudden publicity, then what were they left with?

Changing his appearence after the murder would be like 'shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted'.

A Man's description was widely circulated in the Press.

Lot's of men may have owned a horseshoe tie pin, far fewer men would have owned a watch with a red fob, and the number of men wearing the two together with an astrakhan coat would be extremely rare to say the least -and taken with the rest of the physical description narrows it down to one man. What's more Hutchinson thought that he lived in the area.

It beggars belief that A Man would only have worn have worn his jewellery once in his life, the night he supposedly met Mary Kelly. It is also impossible to think that no one that saw A Man going about his daily business (family,
maids, tradesmen, shopkeepers, work contacts, publicans, carriage drivers etc) had ever noticed his jewellery. If he had existed why did no one
recognise the description ?

Not only did the population want to catch the Ripper to stop the killings, but the City Police and Lord Mayor had offered a reward after the murder of Eddowes, so there was a strong motivation for people recognising the description to 'shop' A Man. No one did.
Why do you think that was ?

[curious4]

Interesting, Ruby, Bobīs book is the one I havenīt managed to get yet - tried when in England this summer but will have to go back to Amazon and try again.

Best wishes,
C4

[Rubyretro]

Interesting, Ruby, Bobīs book is the one I havenīt managed to get yet - tried when in England this summer but will have to go back to Amazon and try again.

Best wishes,
C4

I bought a copy from Amazon.

It's well worth reading. It's got some good nuggets of research in it (such as
the bit that I quoted on the amount of work available in Romford for a casual
labourer in 1888), and some very good ideas (it was Bob who first came up with the idea that Hutchinson could have got the description of A Man's clothes from a shop window dummy, hence his confusion over the wearing of spats).

The conclusion is rather romanced, and you can use a pinch of salt -but his description of Mary as a 'user' is finally the same conclusion that we arrived at arguing against Heindrich on 'the Key' thread using the available evidence.

[Abby Normal]

Ah, you raised a good point, let me explain what I was meaning.



Abby, I was expressing appreciation for you pointing out questionable details without jumping to negative conclusions. With such a deficiency of information we should always try to consider more than one option.

However, the rest of my post concerned the perspective of the police, and their apparent satisfaction with his story & demeanor, therefore I concluded...


Sorry for not being clearer, and thanx for pointing that out. I didn't mean it exonerates Hutch in our mind, just in the mind of the police. But something we should make allowances for.



Possibly, but what else could he do?
The police had a more than satisfactory description to go on, all the manpower required, and an ongoing list of suspect descriptions from all the previous murders.
If Astrachan changed his appearance due to the sudden publicity, then what were they left with?

"Description age about 34 or 35. height 5ft6 complexion pale, dark eyes and eye lashes slight moustache, curled up each end, and hair dark,..."

That is not alot to go on in an overpopulated district like Whitechapel.

Regards, Jon S.

Hi Wicker
Thanks for clearing that up.

If Astrachan changed his appearance due to the sudden publicity, then what were they left with?

What should have been the best and most important witness in the JtR case, who seems for whatever reason to have fallen off the face of the earth after the first several days of his encounter with police which I find strange considering a witness like Lawende who even admitted to not being able to identify the man again, was apparently subsequently used several times at a much later time to try and identify possible suspects.

But i admit that there might be other explanations for Hutch's apparent disapearance from the records shortly after meeting with police other than his story being eventually found to be unreliable.

[Abby Normal]

Abby,

It seems Abberline changed his impression of Hutchinson?

Pray tell, how do you figure that one out?

Monty

Hi Monty
Sorry i guess i was not very clear. We have nothing on record from Abberline specifically that he changed his opinion no, but as I stated to Wicker-this should have been the best witness and after the first several days we hear nothing more about him except in the papers who say his account has been discredited. That silence to me speaks loudly.

But I admit (i did say "seems") that Abberline may never have changed his initial impression of Hutch and there could be other explanations why we never hear of Hutch again.

[Rubyretro]

But I admit (i did say "seems") that Abberline may never have changed his initial impression of Hutch and there could be other explanations why we never hear of Hutch again.

[/QUOTE]

Think of a few hypothetical reasons then, Abby. And explain why Dew was at a loss and reduced to speculating about it.