Cutbush and the tea trade

[Twitch]

I recently finished reading A.P. Wolf's Jack the Myth and I'm curious about Cutbush's connection to the tea trade. In the book Cutbush is said to have been a clerk and runner in the tea trade. What exactly was a runner? A delivery person?

A.P. Wolf also mentions that the bodies of a couple of the victims of JrR were found outside tea warehouses. If we assume that Cutbush was JtR, what would be his reason for killing the victims in these locations? This might seem farfetched, but maybe he had access, legal or otherwise, to parts of these warehouses and used them as temporary hiding spots where he could regain his composure and striaighten himself up a bit after the murders, as well as wait out the police?

Thoughts?

Jeff


P.S. Thanks HB :)

[A.P. Wolf]

Greetings Jeff, I don't think I ever said he was a 'runner' in the tea trade.
Macnaghten viewed Cutbush as a 'rambler' in the tea trade, but then Macnaghten was quite a rambler in the police trade, certainly with his flatulent and long winded memo.
Truth is Cutbush was a short lived clerk in the tea trade - due to his disconcerting habit of throwing folks down the stairs - who then went on to canvas for a local trade directory. We still do not know which one.
The tea warehouses were formidable structures, dominating entire blocks of Whitechapel in those days, and young Thomas may well have used his knowledge of these warehouses to move around Whitechapel without using connecting arteries to the main roads; in other words he could have entered a tea warehouse in Mitre Square and then left the warehouse in Aldgate High Street, or vice versa, and so forth. Certainly he was able to enter property - perhaps still owned by his family - on the Whitechapel Road to suddenly appear elsewhere on the Whitechapel map.
After the events of 1888 the Salvation Army usefully employed the same tactics to move their troops around Whitechapel - actually from an address in Whitechapel Road once owned by Thomas' family - and to falsify voting registers, claiming a right to vote twice from the same household because the front door was in Whitechapel Road whilst the back door was in Plummers Row.
Thomas took his tea with sugar you must understand, and his immediate family had a controlling interest along the entire 'Roadside' with rentals to sugar makers, chandlers, tea warehouses and the like. The 'sugar houses' and tea warehouses were immense structures and Thomas was not the first killer in this particular district of Whitechapel to use these structures to carry out such killings.
Young Thomas was a man on the move all right.

[R.J.Palmer]

From the 1881 UK Census

Robinson Burn

Age: 32
Birth year: about 1849
Where born: Blyth, Northumberland, England
Civil parish: Stockton On Tees
County/Island: Durham
Street address: 13 Derby St
Occupation: Traveller Clerk Merchant Tea


Note that the emphasis is on 'traveller or "traveller clerk.' By 1891 Burn is listed as a “Tea Merchant”


Next up, Aug. Chas. Hodge, living in the houshold of his parents, Thomas and Mary Ann Hodge.

Relation: son
Age: 18
Birth year: 1863
Where born:Old Ford, Middlesex, England
Civil parish: Bethnal Green
County/Island: London
Street address: 37 Auckland Rd
Occupation: Tea Traveler



Philip Alexander
Age: 22
Estimated birth year: abt 1859
Relation: Son
Father's name: Elias
Mother's name: Hannah
Where born: Liverpool
Civil parish: Liverpool
County/Island: Lancashire
Street address: 25 St Bride St
Occupation: Comml Traveller (Tea)

All told, I found some 630 examples of Tea Travelers in the 1881 UK Census, and there is probably twice that amount.

[SirRobertAnderson]

:bump2:

Bump up of an old post and a fascinating theory by A.P.

I am curious as to what was the name of the murderer who first used the tea warehouses to carry out killings. (The use of the plural killings is particularly interesting.)


The tea warehouses were formidable structures, dominating entire blocks of Whitechapel in those days, and young Thomas may well have used his knowledge of these warehouses to move around Whitechapel without using connecting arteries to the main roads; in other words he could have entered a tea warehouse in Mitre Square and then left the warehouse in Aldgate High Street, or vice versa, and so forth. Certainly he was able to enter property - perhaps still owned by his family - on the Whitechapel Road to suddenly appear elsewhere on the Whitechapel map.

After the events of 1888 the Salvation Army usefully employed the same tactics to move their troops around Whitechapel - actually from an address in Whitechapel Road once owned by Thomas' family - and to falsify voting registers, claiming a right to vote twice from the same household because the front door was in Whitechapel Road whilst the back door was in Plummers Row.

Thomas took his tea with sugar you must understand, and his immediate family had a controlling interest along the entire 'Roadside' with rentals to sugar makers, chandlers, tea warehouses and the like. The 'sugar houses' and tea warehouses were immense structures and Thomas was not the first killer in this particular district of Whitechapel to use these structures to carry out such killings.

Young Thomas was a man on the move all right.

[Chris G.]

:bump2:

Bump up of an old post and a fascinating theory by A.P.

I am curious as to what was the name of the murderer who first used the tea warehouses to carry out killings. (The use of the plural killings is particularly interesting.)

Hi Bob

The fourth canonical victim, Catherine Eddowes, was found near a Kearley and Tonge Tea Warehouse in Mitre square. There was a similar such warehouse near Buck's Row, site of the murder of Mary Ann (Polly) Nichols, the first canonical victim. These warehouses were located near Vallance Road, north of the Nichols murder site. As noted, the Kearley and Tonge empire had such warehouses scattered throughout the East End.

Chris

[Phillip Walton]

Excuses for bumping up an old thread. I worked for Kearley & Tonge in Mitre Square in 1964/65. Then the buildings on the north and east side of the square were substantially as they were in 1888. A post 1888 building occupied the south side, to the right of the entrance (west side) was a cleared bomb site (the murder of Katherine Eddows took place in the s/w corner of the square), to the left of the entrance was another post 1888 building that was in fact an extension of the northern range in the same style. All these buildings were connected by a labyrinth of underground passages, some of which extended beneath the square itself. One passage from beneath the front door of the northern range extended at least to the centre of the square where it was bricked up. I was told that this was to prevent access from the bombed buildings.