Recollections

Cutbush

Earlier Cutbushes in the family date back to 1740 when they worked in Office of Ordnance, Tower of London. Names of grandfathers past include: · Luke Flood Cutbush (1804- 1872) · Thomas Hoskins Cutbush (1763-1823) · Edward Cutbush (1740- 1790)

Jack the Ripper

One of the suspects in the Jack the Ripper case was Thomas Hayne Cutbush, who was a second cousin once removed from Corinne. 

His father, Thomas Taylor Cutbush (1844 – 1885) was a mercantile clerk who appears to have married at least 3 times, and absconded from England to New Zealand then Australia:

• -          24 Jul 1844 - born in Enfield St Andrew, England [christening record]
• -          29 Sep 1864 – married Kate Hayne  in London [marriage certificate] with whom he had a son Thomas Hayne Cutbush in 1866
• -          Nov 1866 – left England for Wellington, New Zealand
• -          10 Dec 1867 – married Agnes Ingles Stoddart in New Zealand [refer to marriage certificate] with whom he had a daughter Helen Stoddart Cutbush in 1868 [stillborn, refer to records]. Agnes was daughter of James Stoddart and was age 18
• -          17 July 1870 – death of his wife Agnes Ingles Stoddart, age 20 years [Australian and New Zealand Gazette (Published in UK), 8 October 1870]
• -          24 Sept 1870 – two months after his wife died, he married Frances Augusta Evelyn Watson in Wellington New Zealand [Australian and New Zealand Gazette, 10 December 1870] with whom he had a daughter Clara Augusta born 1876 in Sydney.
• -          1871 – left New Zealand for Melbourne, Australia [legal notice in The Times, 15 June 1892]
• -          1876 – daughter Clara Augusta born in Sydney [New South Wales Registry Of Births, Deaths and Marriages, registration 1574/1876]
• -          1885 - resided at Pickles St, Port Melbourne [legal notice in The Times, 15 June 1892]

Thomas Taylor Cutbush is claimed in some accounts to have died in 1866. However, there are many references to a Thomas Taylor Cutbush who emigrated to New Zealand in 1866 and to Australia in 1871. 

Back to his son, Thomas Hayne Cutbush:[7]

Thomas Cutbush was named as the Ripper by the Sun newspaper, first on 13 February 1894 and then subsequently in later editions. Author A.P Wolf, in the book Jack The Myth, also favoured Cutbush as the Ripper. The possibility of Thomas Cutbush being Jack the Ripper was thoroughly investigated by the police at the time, and shown to be without foundation.  To disprove the newspaper claims Melville Macnaghten penned his memoranda [see below], in which he not only disputed the likelihood of Cutbush being Jack the Ripper, but named three alternative candidates, Druitt, Ostrog and Kosminski. Macnaghten claimed Cutbush was unlikely to have been the Ripper, due to the fact that the knife used by Cutbush was different to that used by the Ripper, and was not purchased by Cutbush until February of 1891, some two years and three months after the Ripper murders. Macnaghten also claimed that the frenzied killer of 1888 was unlikely to lie dormant for two years, then re-emerge and be content with stabbing women in the bottom.

Cutbush was born in 1866 in Kennington, his father died when he was young. Thomas was said to have been a rather spoilt child, he lived with his mother and aunt at 14 Albert Street, Kennington. These ladies, it has been said, were of a nervous and rather excitable disposition. Cutbush was at one time employed as a clerk and traveller in the tea trade at the Minories, and subsequently as a canvasser for a directory. He abandoned his job, and now led an idle and useless life. He studied medical books by day and wandered the streets at night, often returning home with muddy clothes.

In some reports it is claimed, blood stained clothes. Cutbush was detained as a lunatic on 5 March

1891, in Lambeth infirmary, suffering from syphilis and paranoid delusions. He wrote to Lord Grimthorpe, and others, believing that people were trying to poison him with bad medicines. He soon escaped, and was at liberty for four days, taking with him a knife which he used to stab Florence Grace Johnson in the buttocks, and also attempted to do the same to Isabella Frazer Anderson, in Kennington. These crimes appeared to be imitations of a criminal called Colicott, who a couple of months previous had stabbed six young women in the behind with a pointed awl, and may have been responsible for up to sixty assaults. Colicott was arrested, but subsequently discharged, owing to faulty identification. 

Thomas Cutbush was arrested on 9 March 1891, and charged with malicious wounding, he was committed to Broadmoor, where he died in 1903. At the time of the Whitechapel murders Cutbush was 23 years of age, a little young according to the eyewitness descriptions of the Ripper, and lived in Kennington, some distance from Whitechapel.