Leading Events (_continued_).
IN the autumn of 1848, the Royal Agricultural Society of England held a
meeting in this city. The exhibition of stock and implements took place
in a large field near the Newmarket Road, and attracted thousands of
visitors. The trials of implements took place on land near the city.
Lectures were delivered by the Rev. E. Sidney and others at the
Shirehall. The members of the Society and their friends dined together
on two occasions, in St. Andrew’s Hall. Addresses were delivered by
Professor Sedgwick and other eminent men on various subjects. S.
Bignold, Esq., was mayor during this year.
MURDER OF THE NORWICH RECORDER.
Late on the night of November 28th, 1848, the city was startled by the
intelligence of the murder of Isaac Jermy, Esq., the Recorder of Norwich,
and his son. His son’s wife (Mrs. Jermy Jermy), and her servant, Eliza
Chastney, were also fired at and wounded by the same murderous hand. The
first news of these murders and attempted murders excited universal
horror. They appeared to be so inhuman and atrocious, that public
feeling was wrought up to the highest pitch; and all the reports
published in the local and metropolitan journals were read with the
greatest avidity. James Blomfield Rush, a farmer, well known in Norfolk,
and a tenant under Mr. Jermy, was at once suspected and apprehended. He
was examined before the magistrates, committed, tried, found guilty, and
executed. We give a short account of this terrible tragedy.
Mr. Jermy, with his wife and family, lived at a mansion called Stanfield
Hall, about two miles distant from Wymondham, and Rush lived at a
neighbouring farm house, known as Potash Farm. The Preston family, of
which the recorder was a descendant, originally came from the village of
Preston, in the hundred of Babergh, Suffolk, and settled at Beeston St.
Lawrence, in the hundred of Tunstead, in Norfolk. In 1837, the Rev. G.
Preston died, leaving his son, the recorder, heir to Stanfield and his
other entailed property. The recorder, previous to his father’s death,
was called Mr. Preston; but soon after that event, he took the necessary
steps for complying with the stipulation in the will of Mr. Wm. Jermy,
from whom the property had descended, that the possessor of the estate
should assume his name and arms, and accordingly he took the name and
arms of Jermy by license from the crown. He was a county magistrate and
one of the chairmen at quarter sessions, recorder for Norwich, and a
director of the Norwich Union Insurance Office. Indeed, he had been all
his life closely connected with the city.
There had been some disputes relative to the Stanfield property. It was
said that one of the male relatives of William Jermy had disposed of his
reversionary interest in these estates for the trifling consideration of
£20. This occurred in the year 1754. In June 1838, when the Rev. George
Pearson’s furniture and library at Stanfield Hall were advertised for
sale, a person named Thomas Jermy, a grandson of John Jermy, with a
cousin of his, named John Larner, put in a claim to the estate, and
served notices both upon Mr. Jermy and the auctioneer to stop the sale.
Larner then attempted to obtain possession of the hall, but was shortly
afterwards ejected by Rush, (who was then acting as bailiff for Mr.
Jermy,) with a party of labourers. Larner then cut down some timber and
carted it away; and he and his party were apprehended for the offence,
but he himself was acquitted, though his accomplices were convicted in
penalties. Shortly afterwards placards were posted in the neighbourhood,
stating their intention to obtain forcible possession. This they
attempted to do, but they were apprehended and committed to the assizes.
They pleaded _guilty_, and were sentenced to various periods of
imprisonment.
Rush, being aware of all these circumstances, may have thought that he
could perpetrate the murder in disguise, and that suspicion would rest on
those who claimed the estate. It was stated and believed that he was a
near relation to the recorder, who, when he came into possession of his
estates, employed Rush as his steward, but rescinded his leases, having
found that they were illegal. This created the first ill feeling between
the parties. The recorder granted new leases to Rush, but, as the latter
alleged, at higher rent. Rush soon afterwards took the Potash Farm in
Hethel, under Mr. Calver; this farm adjoining the Stanfield estate, and
being very convenient for his occupation. It being for sale, Mr. Jermy
wished to become the purchaser, and he authorised Rush, who fixed the
value at £3,500, to buy it for him. Rush attended the sale, and having
bid £3,500 for Mr. Jermy, bade £3,750 for himself. The recorder, though
much annoyed by this transaction at first, was induced to lend Rush the
money, on mortgage, to complete the purchase. The equity of redemption,
or the ownership, therefore belonged to him. A number of mortgage deeds
were executed, the last of which was dated September 28th, 1844, and it
recited several prior mortgages.
The effect of it was, that a sum of £5000 in all was charged upon the
estate, by way of mortgage, in favour of the recorder, and it contained a
provision that the money was to remain on the security of that estate
_until the_ 30_th_ _November_, 1848. The interest on the £5000 was 4 per
cent. or £200 per annum, and Rush became tenant so as to enable the
recorder to distrain for rent. Rush now held three farms, and in
October, 1847, he was in arrear of rent for the Stanfield farm, and the
recorder put in some distresses. Rush being ejected went to live at
Potash farm house. Mr. Jermy also brought an action against Rush for
breach of covenants. This action was tried at the March assizes, 1848,
and it, as well as the previous distresses, seemed to have occasioned
rancourous feelings in Rush’s mind towards Mr. Jermy. He published a
pamphlet which professed to be a report of the trial, calling Mr. Jermy a
villain, and stating that he had no right to Stanfield Hall. This showed
that Rush cherished malignant feelings towards his victim.
Rush appears to have for some time premeditated the murder of Mr. Jermy
and his whole family; and he ultimately resolved to carry out a deep-laid
scheme, both of murder and robbery. He got a young woman named Emily
Sandford into his service as governess, and seduced her. He then
employed her to draw up some quasi legal documents, as she could write
like a lawyer’s clerk. According to one of these documents, signed
“Isaac Jermy,” that gentleman gave up all claim on Rush, if the latter
gave up all papers and documents relating to the Stanfield estate. The
signature was of course forged. After the murder these documents were
found concealed under the floor of a bed-room in Rush’s house, ready to
be produced had he escaped suspicion.
Rush’s conduct before the murders had been observed. He had taken every
precaution to throw off suspicion. During the latter part of November,
he had been in the habit of going out at night, pretending to be on the
look-out for poachers. He ordered a quantity of straw to be littered
down from his homestead to the fields towards Stanfield Hall. A portion
of the path which had never before been littered with straw, was then
littered by his direction, and the straw ceased where the green sward
began, so that he could walk from his house towards the recorder’s
mansion, without any danger of his footsteps being traced. Before
November 28th, he had caused everybody to leave his house except Emily
Sandford and a lad named Savory. On that day he returned home about 5
p.m., and asked when the dinner would be ready. Emily Sandford said it
would be ready soon, upon which he remarked, “There is just time for me
to go into the garden and fire off my gun;” and he went into the garden
and discharged his gun accordingly. This was intended to account for his
gun having been recently used. He had bought a double-barrelled gun in
London the last time he was there. After tea he appeared to be extremely
agitated. He went up-stairs to his bedroom and put on a disguise; one
part of which was for the whole person, being in fact a widow’s dress,
which was quite new. Another part was a black crape bonnet with a double
frill hanging by it; and the frill rendered it difficult for any one to
discern the wearer’s features. He enveloped himself with a large cloak,
armed himself with his double-barrelled gun, and went out to do his work
of murder between seven and eight o’clock. Nobody saw him leave the
house. The night was dark and windy and well suited for the deeds of an
assassin.
Soon after eight o’clock, the recorder’s dinner being over, he was
sitting alone in the dining-room, little dreaming of the doom that
awaited him and his son. His son and his son’s wife, who had retired to
the drawing-room, were about to partake of tea and to amuse themselves
with a game of picquet, the cards being on the table. Mr. Jermy was in
the habit of going outside the hall after dinner, and on this evening he
left the dining-room and walked to a porch in front of the mansion.
Rush, who knew the recorder’s habits and expected him to come out, was
standing near the porch in disguise holding his loaded gun in his hand.
As soon as Mr. Jermy reached the porch, Rush presented his gun, fired,
and shot him through the heart. He fell backwards, groaned, and
instantly expired. Rush immediately ran to the side door, entered, and
proceeded along the passages leading to the staircase hall. He passed
close to the butler, who, affrighted at the appearance of an armed man in
disguise, retired to his pantry. Rush passed on to the door opening into
the staircase hall. Mr. Jermy, jun., who had heard the report of a gun,
opened the door at that very moment. They met; Rush drew back, presented
the gun, and fired; and young Mr. Jermy fell dead in the hall. The
assassin then passed on into the dining-room, no doubt with the intention
of exterminating the whole family. Mrs. Jermy, still in the
drawing-room, on hearing the second report, immediately went into the
hall, and passed over the dead body of her husband. Eliza Chastney, one
of the female servants, on hearing her mistress screaming for help, ran
up to her, and holding her by the waist cried out, “My dear mistress,
what is the matter?” At this moment, Rush came out of the dining-room,
and seeing the two women opposite to him, levelled his weapon and fired
twice, wounding Mrs. Jermy in the arm and her servant in the leg. The
murderer then made his escape by the side door, leaving death, misery,
and woe behind him. He did not escape, however, before some of the
servants had made their observations of him. Eliza Chastney had marked
the man, and she afterwards identified him at the trial. Strange to say,
several persons were standing at the gate close to the bridge, heard the
reports of a gun, and heard the alarm bell ringing, but did not imagine
that anything serious had happened. Some people are so stolid that an
earthquake would scarcely arouse them. A man who had been employed in
the stables, hearing the reports, thought that the hall was attacked by a
band of ruffians, went to the back, swam over the moat which surrounds
the hall, and ran to the house of a neighbouring farmer (Mr. Colman), and
having obtained a horse rode to Wymondham, spreading the alarm as he
went.
In the meantime, the scene at Stanfield Hall was one of utter dismay.
The cook had fled to the coach house with little Miss Jermy, the daughter
of Mr. Jermy, jun. The cowardly butler, who might have seized the
assassin in the passage, rushed to Mr. Gower’s, another farmer, for
assistance. The maid servants conveyed their wounded mistress upstairs
to bed. Eliza Chastney was lying wounded on the ground; Mr. Jermy, sen.,
was lying dead in the porch, everybody being then uncertain as to his
fate; and Mr. Jermy, jun., was lying dead in the hall. Mr. Colman, Mr.
Gower, and Mr. Gower’s two sons, having received some vague information,
had hurried to the hall, and were the first who discovered what had
happened. The servants were all panic-stricken.
What was the conduct of the assassin after the murders? Emily Sandford,
whom he had seduced, though at first she told a false story, revealed it
all in the course of the inquest and the examinations before the
magistrates. Between nine and ten o’clock on that same night, Rush’s
knock was heard at his own door. Emily Sandford went to the door to open
it, but without a light, and she did not see him come in. He went
upstairs to his own room, put off his disguise which was found there by
the police, and in a short time came down again without his boots and
coat. He told Emily Sandford to make haste and put out her fire and go
to bed; and before he left her he said, “If any inquiry is made about me,
say I was not out more than ten minutes.” She followed, after she had
put out the fire, and asked him where she should sleep. He told her that
she was to sleep in her own room; that being the first night she had done
so for a long time. She went to bed, and between two and three o’clock
in the morning Rush, who had heard voices outside, rapped at the door of
her room and desired her to let him in; and she did so. He came
trembling to her bedside and said, “Now you be firm, and remember that I
was out only ten minutes.” She was extremely agitated and inquired what
was the matter; but he would only tell her that she might hear of
something in the morning. Taking hold of his hand she observed that he
trembled violently. Next morning the police, who had watched the house
all night, apprehended him, and on the same day he was examined before
the magistrates. Emily Sandford also underwent a lengthened examination,
and persisted in stating that Rush was out only a quarter of an hour on
the previous night; but at the inquest subsequently held by Mr. Press at
Wymondham, she confessed that her first statement was false, admitting
that Rush did not return home till after nine o’clock, and that he told
her to say he had been out only ten minutes. She also gave evidence as
to all that passed between her and Rush that night, as already related.
On the morning after the murder the police searched Potash farm house,
and found two double-barrelled guns in the closet in Rush’s bed-room, but
these were not the weapons he used. The gun he had used was afterwards
found under a manure heap. In the house the police found a black dress,
a grey and black frontlet, female wig, and a long black veil, as for a
female head-dress. These were hidden in a closet in Rush’s bed-room.
Concealed under the floor of a closet a number of documents were also
found, which turned out to be the forged deeds before alluded to. These
formed an extraordinary link in the case, and after repeated examinations
the prisoner was committed to the assizes for trial. The bodies of his
victims were consigned to their last resting place at Wymondham on
December 5th, in the presence of a vast concourse of spectators.
The trial of Rush excited universal interest all over England, Scotland,
and Ireland. It commenced at the Shirehall, Norwich, on Thursday, March
29th, 1849, before Baron Rolfe. It continued six days, and each day the
court was crowded to excess. He was not defended by counsel. Mr.
Sergeant Byles stated the case for the prosecution, and then called a
number of witnesses who clearly proved the facts. Having in the
preceding part of this narrative stated all the particulars, it is
unnecessary to give the evidence. The documents which were found in a
secret place under the floor of the bed-room closet in the prisoner’s
house were produced, and several of them were proved to be forgeries,
which, if carried into effect after the recorder’s death, would have
placed the prisoner in a very good position with respect to the farms
which he occupied, and would have rid him of all his liabilities. A
powerful motive for the commission of the murders was therefore apparent.
The servants at the hall, who had seen the disguised armed man there, all
deposed that they believed the prisoner to be the man, as they had known
him before, and as they had recognised him by his height, form, walk, and
gait. Eliza Chastney, who had been severely wounded by the assassin, was
brought into court on a couch, attended by medical men. When asked if
she saw the assassin in court, she pointed to Rush and said, “That is the
man.” She had seen him several times at the hall. When he fired at her,
she saw the whole form of his head and shoulders, and she knew no one
else having a similar appearance. Emily Sandford entered the box
apparently in a weak state. She was examined at great length, and she
stated with much clearness all that had passed between her and Rush and
other parties in reference to the documents produced. She also gave a
full account of the prisoner’s conduct on the night of the 28th, as
already narrated.
When the prisoner commenced his cross-examination of this witness there
was a profound silence in the court, all present being anxious to know
how he would treat the unfortunate female whom he had seduced, and who
had given evidence against him. He appeared to be under the influence of
strong emotion, so much so as at times, as to stifle his utterance; and
he was frequently on the verge of bursting into tears, yet he mastered
his feelings, and put his questions mildly in an assumed endearing
manner, trying to rouse any affection that she might have left for him.
She gave her answers in a low tone, and sometimes weeping, which excited
the pity of the spectators. Nearly all the questions put by the prisoner
were irrelevant to her evidence in chief, but not all the blandishments
and frequent adjurations of the questioner could elicit answers to suit
his purpose. At length he put questions which roused her indignation,
and she reproached him for his perfidy in not marrying her as he
promised. If he had done so, she could not have given evidence against
him. Four days were occupied with the case for the prosecution. On the
fifth day the prisoner commenced his defence, and he spoke on that and
the following day fourteen hours without making any impression whatever
in his favour. He began by admitting a guilty knowledge that something
was about to take place in the hall on that night. He said parties had
consulted him as to the expediency of taking forcible possession of the
hall, as had been done some years before. He advised them not to do so,
but still he apprehended that something serious would happen. He left
his house at eight or half-past eight o’clock on the night of the
murders, and he went to the boundary of his own land. When he got to the
fence leading to the hall, he waited a few minutes and thought he would
go back as he felt ill, but at that moment he heard the report of a gun
or pistol in a direct line from the hall. He then heard two more, and
was struck with amazement, as the parties to whom he alluded had always
said, if they took firearms it would only be to intimidate, not to use
them. He then heard the bell rung violently, and he hastened back to his
house as quickly as he could, and he went through the garden into the
house. Having given this account of himself on that night, he proceeded
to comment on the evidence with a view to show contradictions.
Mr. Sergeant Byles replied, showing that the prisoner had only
strengthened the case against him.
The learned judge summed up in a lucid manner, the jury soon returned a
verdict of guilty of wilful murder, the prisoner was sentenced to be
hung, and the dread sentence was executed on the bridge in front of
Norwich Castle on the morning of Saturday, April 21st, in the presence of
many thousands of spectators. The unhappy man remained impenitent to the
last.