Death record looks pretty conclusive then but the d.o.b. May be incorrect.
I believe that at the time of their marriage John was living in Digby Street.
I found a report dated January 1848 which described The appalling living conditions in Bethnal Green. Digby Walk is described thus:
A distressing and degrading (place). In this alley which is in a state of the most beastly dirt. More than half of this horrid alley is covered with a stagnant pool of the most offensive and filthy slime and mud, in some places to the depth of a foot. Some of the houses which abut onto it are unfinished, but the yards of the older houses present a character little dissimilar to the stagnant gutter or ditch itself. The refuse from a pigsty drains into this gutter and adds to the pungency of its offensiveness. Foul privies and overflowing cesspools ensure much sickness and disease prevails here.
Not very salubrious!
I have found a baptism of a John Hitchcock born on 27th September 1801 at St. Matthews, Bethnal Green. He was baptised on 11th November and his parents were William and Sarah Hitchcock. I wonder if this is a more likely candidate for the father of John born circa 1823. I agree with you that he doesn't seem like the son of a haberdasher!
Cheers,
SVC
