George William Topping Hutchinson: Witness

[Abby Normal]

This thread is based upon the strong contention that Topping Hutchinson and George Hutchinson are one and the same. The evidence makes this a near certainty for this poster. This is not a thread to argue about this particular point and I hope posters can just begin at the conclusion of the two being the same man and then go from there.

The question is, after looking at Topping's family history, what credibility as a wtiness does he have? Again, one must begin with the conclusion that Topping is Hutchinson and that he was never a suspect that we know of. This is about his witness statement and his credibility as a witness.

Mike

Hi Mike
To me , it doesn't matter if Hutch is Toppy or not in terms of his viability as a suspect (I think he is). But to take your premise:

Apparently Toppy (if GH was Toppy)told his son something different than he told police (rich Jew Vs. someone like Churchill). Therefore his "family history" indicates that Toppy is not very credible as he seems to fit his story to whover is listening. Or perhaps Reg did the same thing as his old man and embellishing/lying run in the family.

[Wickerman]

....people like LA DE DA definitely existed, but in Dorset st it would look very odd indeed

The way Kelly was murdered was very odd!
Odd, doesn't mean unlikely.

and it's definitely not the clothing that JTR would wear, many posters here would agree with me.. JTR would in my opinion look more like JOE AVERAGE.

Definitely not?, ....you should have been working for Abberline they'd have caught him in no time :-)

It's these closed minded, 'I definitely know" type opinions that are unhelpful in open minded debates.
Nothing is known for certain, and Nothing can be so easily dismissed.

One "well-dressed" man, the elusive "Clerk" was seen four times (Best, PC Smith, Marshall & Packer) with Stride prior to her death, or Stride was seen with four different "Clerk" looking men.
Mrs Long saw another "well-dressed" man with Chapman in Hanbury St.

So now we have another "Clerk" looking man seen at the end of Dorset St. on the night of Kelly's murder. Speaks to consistency if anything, but you call all these occurances "odd"?

The description Lawende gave is only a strong as his "belief" that the clothes he was shown belonged to the woman he saw. Too much credit is given to Lawende when he never saw Eddowes face nor her body to identify her. That is a flimsy connection by any standards - but you know this already.

Regards, Jon S.

[Marlowe]

There is an article (somewhere) in which Mrs. Kennedy apparently told the reporter that she knew Kelly (because her parents lived in the court) and that she saw Kelly out WITH HER FRIENDS at 3:00 am (was the well-dressed man her friend? Did she mean Hutchinson, too?) Kennedy said she didn't know who the woman was that was refusing to go with the well-dressed man, who was pulling her in the opposite direction. Interestestly, that scene is oddly similar to the Broadshoulders and Stride sighting, adding weight to it's authenticity.

This suggests (to me at least) that Kennedy and Lewis were not the same person. Kennedy's and Hutchinson's descriptions of the well-dressed man match very closely. It seems that the well-dressed man most probably DID EXIST. I've argued, for years that he was (in Hutchinson's description anyway) dressed like an actor or magician. I see him as a Baron Kurtz type. (from the movie, The Third Man) In other words, a down-on-his luck, Royal blooded, homosexual :-) Hutchinson actually implied this when he said (though surly looking) 'he didn't look like he would attack another'...man! But the man he saw could also be the "Clerk" looking man that others have described.

One, small, meaningless detail that makes me wonder if maybe Hutchinson was telling the truth about the man looking Jewish, is the detail about the parcel wrapped in oil-cloth. My (Jewish) mother-in-law swears that this is something that Jews, in particular, used to do before going out in the rain with something of value. And it seems that it was raining that night, so this
helps to back up Hutch ever so slightly, at least about seeing a (Jewish looking) man that night.

But the three different signatures, from the same person, is a problem for me. Why did that happen? What does it mean? Does it suggest a psychological problem of some sort?

Marlowe

[Rubyretro]

[QUOTE]

Hello Ruby. Quite right. But given that Toppy THOUGHT him Jewish, it does not follow that he was.

Obviously -unless there is some corroboration.

The citation, added to the description of the jewellery, makes it clear that
Hutch 'thought' that the suspect was Jewish -or wished 'us/the Police' to think so.

I agree totally with you that it doesn't follow that the suspect (if he existed' was Jewish.

But do you believe Hutchinson -or not ?

I have posted elsewhere a photograph and description of A Man--down to his pin. Turns out he was Irish--not Jewish.

I'm sorry but I missed this...can you repost it, please ?

[Lechmere]

I have often said that my general view about Hutchinson is that he saw an opportunity to make a few shillings from the police and took it. I think he got drawn into the Ripper melodrama and liked the attention.
I think this fits very well with what we can deduce or know of Toppy from other sources.

Did he deliberately go to the police with a complete pack of lies? I find that hard to believe. It would take a pretty callous man to do that.

I don’t think he knew Kelly for 3 years. I find that unbelievable – not just because we now know that he almost certainly had been in the East End for little more than a year. You could I suppose make a case that he may have regularly visited his cousin before 1888.
When I lived in the East End one of the group who used to often socialise with us actually lived in Lee and regularly used to come up by train. It isn’t very far away.
However Kelly’s irregular living habits were the factor which led me to doubt any long term association. I am sceptical of anything she told Barnett – none of which can be corroborated so far as I can tell. I think she spun him a load of old rubbish mixed with some semi facts. However there are other sources (Mrs Cathy) that suggest Kelly was living away from the Commercial Street area.
I can quite believe that Hutchinson knew Kelly but over-exaggerated to make his testimony seem more significant.

It may be unfashionable but I don’t think that Hutchinson was Lewis’s loiterer either. The connection was not made by anyone at the time. Not the police, not the press, not any amateur sleuth. This tells me that there was some obvious reason – obvious to them at the time - which discounted a connection.
I think this is more than hinted at by the incongruity of the descriptions – ‘not tall but stout’ and ‘military appearance’.
Furthermore people were often known for their head gear and I suspect that Hutchinson simply did not possess a black wide awake hat.
As we have seen with this thread (Evening News, 10th November story), if connections were there to be made then people at the time made them. They were not idiots. The connections may be wrong or conjectural or dressed up as fact when they were not, but they were made. The newspapers were there to sell and find new angles and look at.

I don’t take Hutchinson’s reference in the police statement to the A-man being of Jewish appearance as an indication of anti-Semitism. In the press interviews it says foreign looking. If it is suggested he said Jewish looking and the newspspers toned that down to avoid public disquiet, then that is I would suggest, awarding a degree of responsibility to the press that is undeserved. I am certain at least one newspaper would have slipped in with the J-word.

Why would Hutchinson say the A-man was of Jewish appearance – perhaps by his overall description even without using that particular word?
This gets to the heart of the matter.
Did he see the A-man more or less (probably less) as described?
Did he just see Kelly with some non descript person and then the powers of suggestion took over?
Did he say what he thought the police wanted him to say?

Some state that someone of the A-man type – a toff or at last someone showing a degree of wealth - would not have been seen in the East End. This is not true as shown by the following:

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/new_york_world/18881118.html

This relates to the case of Sir George Arthur who was arrested in November 1888 while ‘slumming it’, a pastime which gained in popularity as the Ripper crimes grabbed popular attention.
Everyone wanted a bit of the action – a share in the buzz, the frisson.

All the players, the journalists, the illustrators, Sir George Arthur, Hutchinson, Kelly, Lewis, Kennedy, Abberline and the Ripper were tangibly by November acting out a role. What they saw, how they described things and how they behaved when faced with a set of circumstances was predicated in a major way by popular mythology and urban legends that predated the Autumn of Terror.
Hutchinson’s A-man description must be set in that context. That makes it much more difficult to determine whether he factually described what happened or whether he drastically over exaggerated without even perhaps realising it. The same process can explain why Abberline readily accepted a testimony which many today feel is super unrealistic.

If Hutchinson had been ‘sussed out’ for embellishing the truth or drastically over exaggerating or whatever, what would the police have done? Provided they were satisfied that he was not a potential culprit, which would be the natural initial thought, then they would just dismiss him.
How many other false witnesses were actually arrested during this case for wasting police time?
After having made a meal of Hutchinson as a breakthrough witness, and while under close and hostile media scrutiny, would the police have made a big public display of distancing themselves from Hutchinson? No.
The fact that Dew clearly never heard anything negative about Hutchinson suggests that he just drifted from sight.

Lastly I think there is also a chance that Dew (and Fisherman) were right in that Hutchinson got his days mixed up in his eagerness to be part of it

[lynn cates]

A Man

Hello Ruby. Go here, post #430.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?p=179643&highlight=irish#post179643

1. Who is this man?

2. Is he of "Jewish appearance"?

3. Is he, in fact, Jewish?

Could Toppy/Hutch have seen this man? I think that quite likely.

Cheers.
LC

[Malcolm X]

yes i'm well aware that a smartly dressed person was often seen, but not as smartly dressed as GH's LA DE DA... please compare the descriptions

if GH is telling the truth then his description is deadly accurate, because he was right there beside the guy, now this description does not match the other smart guy seen that night, if true; this has to be another person.

also, what is this guy that's supposed to be LA DE DA doing hanging around outside yet again after 3am, if he has already been inside with Kelly earlier on, from 2 to 3am, as per GH..... no something here is seriously wrong.

i would say that Kennedy or whoever she is, is talking rubbish and the clues probably lie with GH......this is is a similar **** up to Kelly being also seen in the morning

but i do concede ground on one thing..... this could be the same guy that's continually changing his clothing, but this is not Pipeman.



.

[Malcolm X]

Hello Ruby. Go here, post #430.

http://forum.casebook.org/showthread.php?p=179643&highlight=irish#post179643

1. Who is this man?

2. Is he of "Jewish appearance"?

3. Is he, in fact, Jewish?

Could Toppy/Hutch have seen this man? I think that quite likely.

Cheers.
LC

ha ha maybe...... but if you're going to opt for him seeing someone very similar to LA DE DA, then you cant do any better than G.Chapman, for sure...... but i'm only making small talk here, just in case someone has a go at me.....i've always been suspicious of him

in addition, years ago here, we had a thread about smart young guys from the West End that used to travel to Whitechapel and pretend to be JTR, they did it for pranks, i think a few of them were caught and warned; so this could be screwing us up too...

[lynn cates]

twice as nice

Hello Malcolm.

"what is this guy that's supposed to be LA DE DA doing hanging around outside yet again after 3am, if he has already been inside with Kelly earlier on, from 2 to 3am"

Well, what if Christer is right and the Toppy/Hutch sighting was the night before?

Cheers.
LC

[Malcolm X]

.
The description Lawende gave is only a strong as his "belief" that the clothes he was shown belonged to the woman he saw. Too much credit is given to Lawende when he never saw Eddowes face nor her body to identify her. That is a flimsy connection by any standards - but you know this already.

Regards, Jon S.

yes and no, be careful here, because the timing is way too close to when she was murdered..... this suspect is not smartly dressed or anything like LA DE DA, he's more like a Joe Average sailor boy...

the only guys that night that were seen close in timing to the murders, were BS, PIPEMAN, SCHWARTZ, DIEMSCHULTZ, SAILOR BOY, and a few other Jewish passers by etc........ this doesn't mean that a posh bloke from earlier on didn't quickly jump in, but it's not looking good, especially with regards to Stride!

to me, Stride was killed by BS, who also killed Eddowes and finally M.Kelly, this person is someone called G.Hutchinson.

finally, yes i'm well aware what a confusing mess all of this is, it's just as bad now as it was 10 years ago, in fact; the only difference now is that TOPPY seems far more like a liar than he did back then.

[Malcolm X]

Hello Malcolm.

"what is this guy that's supposed to be LA DE DA doing hanging around outside yet again after 3am, if he has already been inside with Kelly earlier on, from 2 to 3am"

Well, what if Christer is right and the Toppy/Hutch sighting was the night before?

Cheers.
LC

if so then we're screwed, but for something so important as this, that caused major shockwaves throughout this neighbourhood, i very much doubt that TOPPY got the wrong night.

[The Good Michael]

Apparently Toppy (if GH was Toppy)told his son something different than he told police (rich Jew Vs. someone like Churchill). Therefore his "family history" indicates that Toppy is not very credible as he seems to fit his story to whover is listening. Or perhaps Reg did the same thing as his old man and embellishing/lying run in the family.

Abby, the truth changes with time and one wonders whether Fairclough pushed a hint of aristocracy into Reggie's face and let him run with it a bit.

Mike

[The Good Michael]

I have often said that my general view about Hutchinson is that he saw an opportunity to make a few shillings from the police and took it. I think he got drawn into the Ripper melodrama and liked the attention.
I think this fits very

Did he deliberately go to the police with a complete pack of lies? I find that hard to believe. It would take a pretty callous man to do that.



I don’t take Hutchinson’s reference in the police statement to the A-man being of Jewish appearance as an indication of anti-Semitism. In the press interviews it says foreign looking. If it is suggested he said Jewish looking and the newspspers toned that down to avoid public disquiet, then that is I would suggest, awarding a degree of responsibility to the press that is undeserved. I am certain at least one newspaper would have slipped in with the J-word.

Why would Hutchinson say the A-man was of Jewish appearance – perhaps by his overall description even without using that particular word?
This gets to the heart of the matter.
Did he see the A-man more or less (probably less) as described?
Did he just see Kelly with some non descript person and then the powers of suggestion took over?
Did he say what he thought the police wanted him to say?

Some state that someone of the A-man type – a toff or at last someone showing a degree of wealth - would not have been seen in the East End. This is not true as shown by the following:

http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/new_york_world/18881118.html

This relates to the case of Sir George Arthur who was arrested in November 1888 while ‘slumming it’, a pastime which gained in popularity as the Ripper crimes grabbed popular attention.
Everyone wanted a bit of the action – a share in the buzz, the frisson.

All the players, the journalists, the illustrators, Sir George Arthur, Hutchinson, Kelly, Lewis, Kennedy, Abberline and the Ripper were tangibly by November acting out a role. What they saw, how they described things and how they behaved when faced with a set of circumstances was predicated in a major way by popular mythology and urban legends that predated the Autumn of Terror.
Hutchinson’s A-man description must be set in that context. That makes it much more difficult to determine whether he factually described what happened or whether he drastically over exaggerated without even perhaps realising it. The same process can explain why Abberline readily accepted a testimony which many today feel is super unrealistic.

If Hutchinson had been ‘sussed out’ for embellishing the truth or drastically over exaggerating or whatever, what would the police have done? Provided they were satisfied that he was not a potential culprit, which would be the natural initial thought, then they would just dismiss him.
How many other false witnesses were actually arrested during this case for wasting police time?
After having made a meal of Hutchinson as a breakthrough witness, and while under close and hostile media scrutiny, would the police have made a big public display of distancing themselves from Hutchinson? No.
The fact that Dew clearly never heard anything negative about Hutchinson suggests that he just drifted from sight.

Lastly I think there is also a chance that Dew (and Fisherman) were right in that Hutchinson got his days mixed up in his eagerness to be part of it

Lechmere,

I agree with all of these things. I omitted the loiterer idea because I'm in the air on that and it doesn't matter much as I think Lewis got things a bit mixed up.

But the idea of all parties converging subconsciously on a Jewish toff, real or imagined is brilliant and was eloquently stated. In the case of Topping, what he saw may have been what he wanted to see, or what he surmised from a combination of a real person and an archetype. We've discussed in the past that a bit of brass to a young man hoping to score some coin, certainly can magically appear to be a gold watch and chain, and a bit of wool on the collar of a coat can be astrakhan because he heard the word before, and it was something worn by wealthier men, and so, why not this guy? Not lies, but wishful thinking.

Good stuff!

Oh and, Fisherman may have been right too. Definitely the police were putting two and two together and coming up with the same things we are here, that 3 sightings of the same man smells like the scent of a suspect, and even if it happened that Hutch got the night wrong, it doesn;t make the man NOT a suspect.

Mike

[Malcolm X]

``I don’t take Hutchinson’s reference in the police statement to the A-man being of Jewish appearance as an indication of anti-Semitism``

what do you think his description is supposed to mean, because to be interpreted as anti-semetic, he only needs to ``hint`` that the person could be a Jew.....this puts a strong element of doubt and suspicion into everybodies minds.

this is backed up by him mentioning Petticoat lane later on, and the stereotypical description of a ``make it rich quick`` Diamond-dealer wide boy/ pimp. his description is also `` evil and menacing ``, this is not somebody that you'd welcome into your house, his description is thus fully loaded and quite smart too.

it makes many people think, the types that read the tabloids `` yea this guy is JTR``.

[Malcolm X]

Lechmere,

I agree with all of these things. I omitted the loiterer idea because I'm in the air on that and it doesn't matter much as I think Lewis got things a bit mixed up.

But the idea of all parties converging subconsciously on a Jewish toff, real or imagined is brilliant and was eloquently stated. In the case of Topping, what he saw may have been what he wanted to see, or what he surmised from a combination of a real person and an archetype. We've discussed in the past that a bit of brass to a young man hoping to score some coin, certainly can magically appear to be a gold watch and chain, and a bit of wool on the collar of a coat can be astrakhan because he heard the word before, and it was something worn by wealthier men, and so, why not this guy? Not lies, but wishful thinking.

Good stuff!

Oh and, Fisherman may have been right too. Definitely the police were putting two and two together and coming up with the same things we are here, that 3 sightings of the same man smells like the scent of a suspect, and even if it happened that Hutch got the night wrong, it doesn;t make the man NOT a suspect.

Mike

yes to an extent i agree, but you have to think very hard:-

1..... did toppy build his suspect based on all of this, to claim a cash reward etc etc etc

2..... Is this JTR furthering his anti-semetic hatred.... is this the next stage on from the Ghoulston graffiti

3......if this is JTR, he would definitely build his suspect description for obvious reasons, on what was seen that evening and to do so, he'd need to go to the inquest to find out.

maybe...... maybe not !