'Our' Charles Cross?

[Gary Barnett]

From The Islington Gazette 29th December, 1876.

[Jerry Dunlop]

Very Nice, Gary! Suppose it very well could be.

[Robert Linford]

Great find, Gary. Looks very like 'our' one. But why did he call himself Charles Cross? He must have been guilty, eh?

[Howard Brown]

Excellent Gary ! Thanks !

[Gary Barnett]

Thanks, Jerry, Rob, How.

Of course, we can't be sure it isn't another Charles Cross. But if it is our old mate, we find him considerably off his East End patch. He would have been 27 at the time.

[SirRobertAnderson]

Great find, Gary. Looks very like 'our' one. But why did he call himself Charles Cross? He must have been guilty, eh?

That's name he gave when he was killing people.

[Sam Flynn]

"Accidental death", my arse. He did it on purpose!

Seriously, if this is our Charles Cross - and I don't see why not - it's interesting to see that he was using that very name, in an official capacity, fully 12 years before the Autumn of Terror.

[Robert Linford]

He was found very near to the boy. He didn't give his 'correct' name. The children came from behind a trap but Cross's van was about two feet from the pavement? Did the police investigate this discrepancy? Probably not, because Cross was so charming, suave and debonnaire.

[Howard Brown]

Nina Brown, the better half, just told me that according to the 1881 census, Charles Allen Lechmere was born in 1849 verifying what Gary Barnett said...that he would have been around 27 at the time. Listed as carman too.

I'm sure this is common knowledge to those who research this fellow's history but perhaps not everyone.

[Gary Barnett]

I'm in two minds as to whether this is good or bad news for team Lechmere. In almost any other context it would be bad, but it's another inquest and there's a suggestion that CAL might have been responsible for the death of a child...

[Howard Brown]

Nina has also told me that she located a Charles Cross...approximately the same age ( 26 ) who lived in Lambeth....actually she's been demonstrative that I 'didn't learn my lesson with Carrie Brown !'.

Oh, the humility.

[Howard Brown]

In the spirit of objectivity and that this is Gary's thread and because I jumped the gun and planted my flag squarely on my own foot....I've deleted my posts in order that folks may enjoy Gary's find without a repetition of ...as my wife keeps telling me..."You didn't learn your lesson with Carrie Brown !'.

How

[Dusty Miller]

Well Done Gary!

I looked but couldn't find any other coverage of the inquest.

As much as I'd love to gloat;-) realistically, this still could be another Charlie Cross, but it definitely punches a hole in an already leaky bucket.

[Anna Morris]

That is really interesting. Excellent, Gary!

[Debra Arif]

An excellent and very interesting find, Gary. If this is Lechmere, it would go a long way towards showing that the name Cross may have been used in connection with his job at Pickfords, as has been suggested in the past.