The Stanfield Hall Murders
It will be 174 years, this November, since the Stanfield Hall murders were committed by James Blomfield Rush and to which so much interest was directed once his arrest was made, the trial called and the sentence carried out on Saturday, 21 April 1849. Over the years since, much has been written, with many accounts recycled by those who have been interested in Norfolk history.
INTRODUCTION
James Blomfield Rush
Stanfield Hall is a large and ancient mansion situated near Wymondham and about 10 miles south-west of Norwich in the county of Norfolk. The Hall and Estate was held by Earl Warren in the 11th Century and by 1249 the Prior of Wymondham who had his house and chapel there. In the 14th Century Stanfield Hall came to the Bigods, then to the Appleyards in the 15th Century and to the Flowerdews in the 16th Century. The Hall later came into the hands of the Jermys who, by way of two separate branches of the family, also owned, for a time at least, Gunton Hall, near Aylsham and Bayfield Hall, near Holt in the same County. It was the Bayfield Jermys who provided the route to the murders of 1848 by way of the ‘known’ last in their line – a William Jermy. It was his association in 1751 with a ‘wiley’ lawyer by the name of Isaac Preston who saw to it that the Stanfield Hall Estate passed from the Jermys to the Prestons family once the Jermy line was extinct. By 1791 the Estate was firmly in the hands of the Prestons – a long line of established gentry with their main seat at Beeston St Lawrence northeast of Norwich, near Wroxham.
FURTHER BACKGROUND LEADING UP TO THE MURDERS
Let us recap and elaborate on the above statement by just going
back to just around the year of 1735 and with one member – William Jermy. He married
Elizabeth Richardson, the sole heiress to the Stanfield Hall Estate; she died
in 1750, leaving William a childless, but wealthy widower. He was the last
and only surviving male of his (Bayfield) branch of the Jermy family and while
not having any children nor surviving siblings, he did have two or three first
cousins, of whom one would have been expected to be heir to his considerable
estate. However, it seems that not only was William a notoriously feckless
man by nature he was also not a well man when his wife died in 1750 and it was
at this point when Isaac Preston (1711-1768) came on to the scene; a lawyer by
profession and Sub-Steward of Yarmouth.
Isaac Preston not only managed to ‘befriend’ William
but also managed to take on all his legal affairs as family solicitor. Within about twelve months, certainly by 1752,
Isaac even managed to persuade William to marry his sister Frances (nee
Preston); however, soon after the wedding William passed away. In his
Will, unsurprisingly drafted by Isaac, William gave Frances a life interest in
his Estate but thereafter, with no more Jermys apparently alive, the Estate
would be allowed to pass to certain named members of their Preston
family. There was, however, a most significant proviso to this in the Will
– that in the event that none of these named Prestons outlived William’s
sister, nor had male issue themselves, then the Estate would go to ‘the male person with the name Jermy
nearest related in blood to me (William) and to his heirs forever‘.
This caveat effectively denied inheritance to William’s first cousins or their
heirs. On the evidence, it could justifiably be said that the Will was not
only suspect but that Isaac, through his legal ‘manouvers’ had precipitated a chain
of events which would end in the murder of two of his descendents at Stanfield
Hall, near Wymondham, on 28th November 1848.
While William’s ‘proviso’ was
seen as a very remote possibility, it nevertheless worried Isaac Preston. He
could not, even as a lawyer, remove what must have been William’s explicit
wish; but he could, and did, remove two possible claimants first by tracing
them and then buying both out for what turned out to be a ‘paltry sum’ of
£20, thus securing the inheritance in favour of his own ‘Preston’ descendants.
Doubtless, neither of these two ‘casualties’ had any idea of what they were
signing away!
As events turned out, the two named Prestons in the Will died
before Frances, leaving no offspring. When she died in 1791 with no heirs it
was left for a ‘Jacob’ of a more distant Preston branch to step forward to
claim the Estate for himself. His evidence was supported by the Affidavits
signed by the two relatives of William Jermy and disposed of by Isaac Preston
which proved that they had sold over their interests. Since there was nobody to
object, Jacob’s claim was accepted and Stanfield Hall went to the Preston
family. The legality
of all this was to be disputed two generations later by two members of the
Jermy family who claimed to be the rightful owners of the Estate (see below). Jacob
Preston died in 1796.
THE REV. GEORGE
PRESTON – AND BEYOND! (TAKE NOTE OF THE NAMES IN BOLD!)
The Rev George Preston succeeded his brother Jacob in 1796 and
moved into Stanfield Hall, along with his wife and 12 year old son Isaac
Preston, he set about re-building much of the Hall. It was also around
this time that he and his wife also had one further son, whom they christened
‘William Jermy Preston’, apparently giving a token gesture to the requirement
in the Will of his older ancester – the said William Jermy (above):
“anyone
inheriting his estate must bear the name Jermy, assume the Jermy Arms and Crest
and never sell his library of old books”.
It seems that George Preston only complied with part of
William’s stipulation for the maintenance of the Jermy name; neither
he nor his eldest son Isaac Preston altered
their names to Jermy. Further to this, when the re-building work was completed,
George had his own ‘Preston’ arms placed over the front door. – not the Jermy
arms. As for William’s stipulation that no one should sell his library of books
– well, more of that later!
George Preston and his family went on to live at Stanfield Hall
for an untroubled 40 years and it was in the early days of this period that
a James Blomfield
Rush came into the story as George Preston’s Bailiff. Both
men had strong personalities but, surprisingly perhaps, they got on well
together – at least on the face of it! Curiously perhaps George Preston met
Rush’s aspiration to run his own farms by granting him three leases at favorable
rents. Their overall willingness to work amicably together also poses the
question of whether Rush ‘had
something on George’; perhaps he knew something of George’s
family antecedents and the circumstances in which the Prestons came to occupy
Stanfield Hall? The harmony, if that is what it was, might also suggest that
there was a degree of nervousness on George’s part that someone else outside
the Prestons had knowledge of its history. Certainly, something or other
was to fuel future conflicts between Rush and the Preston family. Whatever
the facts, the relationship that both seemed to enjoy and which both made use
of would change for the worst after George Preston died in 1837.
Then, in the June of 1838, Isaac Preston Snr decided to
re-furbish Stanfield Hall and auction off his father’s old furniture to pay for
the work – including the old books that had belonged to William Jermy some 140
years back! On the day of the auction and during the afternoon, two unknown men
from London appeared upstairs and looked over the books then asked to speak to
Isaac Preston Snr; their
names were John Larner and his ‘legal adviser’ a Daniel Wingfield.
This meeting between Isaac Preston and John Larner would, in time, turn out to
have dire consequences. Larner’s opening words took Isaac Preston
Snr. completely by surprise; for he had:
“Come to
take possession of his family’s property” – that is, Stanfield
Hall and all its estate – he being “the
true heir-at-law”!
Isaac had never heard of John Larner. It was, after all, almost
50 years since Frances had died and 140 years since William Jermy had done the
same – his Will having long since remained a dormant artefact. Nevertheless,
Larner quickly informed him that the Will had expressly forbade the sale of
William Jermy’s library, as well as requiring any who inherited the Estate to
bear the Jermy arms and to change their name to Jermy; neither of which the
Preston’s had done at the appropriate time. Larner seemed so well versed with
William Jermy’s Will and its contents that Isaac needed to bluff his way out of
their presence to allow him to regroup his thoughts and plan some sort of
action to counter this unexpected threat. Being a trained lawyer, Isaac quickly
told the two uninvited visitors to leave his premises immediately and to pursue
any such claim through the Courts in the more usual way. Both John Larner and
Daniel Wingfield refused, so Isaac had the police escort them off the property.
That done, Isaac, who was sufficiently impressed and worried
with Larner’s claim and knowledge of the Will, immediately halted the auction
of the books and, within a very short time afterwards also replaced the
‘Preston’ arms over the door with those of ‘Jermy’. He then applied to have his
family’s surname legally changed from Preston to Jermy and this was announced
in the official London Gazette in August that year – 1838. Henceforth, he would
be known as Isaac Jermy, Esq and his son as Isaac Jermy Jermy,
Gent; thus explaining the form in which their names were to appear in
the newspapers after the murders – still some 10 years into the future.
THE
SIEGE OF STANFIELD HALL – 1838
During the brief period when James Blomfield Rush owned
Stanfield Hall
John Larner, who couldn’t afford to go to law on his claim for it, decided to
proceed more aggressively by occupying the Hall despite the fact that Rush had
installed some new tenants there. On the September 24, 1838, Larner and his
friends evicted them and occupied the Hall for several hours before the Militia
were called out to removed them and take them to the prison in Norwich Castle.
There they were charged with riotous tumult and assembly and bound over to
appear at the Spring Assizes in March 1839 where they received the lesser
suspended sentence for simple riot of 3 months hard labour on the understanding
that they would make no further claims on the estate – something that Isaac
Preston Snr was, no doubt, relieved about. Threatened with transportation to
the colonies if they disobeyed the sentence, John Larner and his legal advisor
friend, Daniel Wingfield, returned to London and were to keep a low profile
thereafter. By 1840, Isaac and his family had moved back into the Hall and for
most of the next 10 years continued to live at Stanfield Hall without further
concern about John Larner. However, James Blomfield Rush was another
matter!
Rush was still the Preston’s bailiff but, increasingly, was
becoming more of a problem. He had made certain agreements with Isaac Jermy
Snr. concerning land that he promised to farm efficiently but reneged on this,
resulting in Isaac eventually taking him to court in 1847. By July 1848, Rush
had been made bankrupt; moreover, repayment of his loan for Potash Farm was due
shortly and he had little or no money. Rush became desperate; then he
remembered the claim made by John
Larner some 10 years before and arranged to meet him in
London where he was also introduced to his cousin, a Thomas Jermy! This
was a name which at least pointed towards some basis for John Larner’s claim
for Stanfield Hall back in 1838; the fact that Larner’s mother and Thomas
Jermy’s father were brother and sister – and were both born with the surname
Jermy. Rush attempted a clumsy plot wherein John Larner and Thomas Jermy, with
their known sense of injustice over losing the Estate, as they saw it, would be
suspected of the murder that he was planning.
Rush promised that he could put both men in possession of ‘their’ property;
however, he first had to hire a literate secretary which turned out to be an
Emily Sanford from London; who, without her clear knowledge of what Rush was up
to, drew up a number of what turned out to be forged documents, allegedly
designed to switch ownership of the Stanfield properties to John Larner and
Thomas Jermy. But these forgeries were simply a device to convince both of them
that they had to return to Norfolk at least once so that they would be seen
seeking their property again. This was crucial to Rush’s plot to implicate both
Larner and Jermy, both of whom did travel to Norfolk in early November 1848.
Rush then forged a number of handwritten Notes, allegedly signed by the cousin
Thomas Jermy, which he was not to see.
THE MURDERS!
Inside Stanfield Hall
On the evening of November 28th 1848, just two days before the
due date when Isaac’s loan to Rush of £5000, plus interest, had to be repaid,
Isaac and his family, including the younger Isaac and his wife, were having
dinner at the Hall. It was Isaac Senior’s known habit after dinner to step out
onto the porch for a little evening air. Being November, it was rather dark on
the porch so that he did not notice what appeared to be a strangely dressed
person hiding in the shadows there. Suddenly, two shots rang out and Isaac Snr.
fell to the ground, mortally wounded. The others in the party rushed out of the
dining room and into the hall to be greeted by the same disguised person who
had entered the house and shot the father. The intruder shot three more times,
killing Isaac Jnr and wounding his mother and a servant and then ran off into
the night but not before dropping two hand-written notes on to the Hall floor
and also in the garden. One of the other servants later said that he thought he
recognized the profile of the murderer in the odd costume, with a false beard
and wig, as that of James Blomfield Rush, the family’s bailiff, but it was
difficult to be certain. The police eventually arrived from Norwich, listened
to the servant’s and other accounts of what had happened, and also examined the
Notes which were found in the Hall and in the grounds outside, supposedly
dropped by the murderer. They all read:
 |
However, the police decided to arrest Rush the next morning and
charge him with the murders for his record and reputation was now not good. He
had a history of increasingly arguing with Isaac Jermy and reneged on loans and
agreements with him. What other reason did the police need!
This double murder was, of course, reported in both the local
and national press, some papers running two or three editions on the story each
day which covered new elements as and when they were revealed. Readers did not
however read about the murders of the two Isaac Prestons, Snr and Jnr, but
those of Isaac Jermy, Esq, and of his son Isaac Jermy Jermy, Gent. Rush
was immediately placed in prison where he pleaded his innocence and tried to
make out that some mystery man had approached him a few days before and that it
was him who must have done the evil deed.
THE TRIAL
James Blomfield Rush’s Trial began on 29 Mar 1849 and took 6
days. An early witness called was the above Thomas Jermy aged
67, then a gardening labourer living in south London. He was simply
asked: “Can you
write?” and he answered even more briefly was “No Sir”. From his reply
it was obvious that he could not have signed the Notes allegedly claiming the
Stanfield Hall Estate.
However, the major prosecution witness was the same Emily
Sanford who had, unwitingly, aided Rush draw up forged documents and later
moved in with him as his mistress earlier that autumn; Rush’s own wife, like
his parents, having all previously died in suspicious circumstances, with Rush
gaining financially in each case. She spoke of his movements the night of the
murders and also about the various documents he had her write out and
countersign, etc. in London. Rush tried to defend himself, rather than employ a
lawyer, and proceeded to give a long rambling speech full of irrelevancies as
he cross-examined all the witnesses. This fooled no one and he was eventually
found guilty of ‘wilful
murder’ after the jury had been out for barely 10 minutes. He
was sentenced to be “hanged
by the neck until dead” at Norwich Castle and to be buried
within its precincts’. The judge's remarks were exceptionally severe – saying to
him:
“It is a matter of perfect indifference to society at large what
your conduct maybe during the few days remaining to you”, being as you are an
object of unmitigated abhorrence to everyone”.
James Blomfield Rush was hanged two weeks later, on
the 21 April 1849 and a wax death mask was displayed in
Madam Tussaud’s for many years after.
Footnote: Because Isaac Jermy Snr died moments before his son, the
Stanfield Estate passed briefly to the Isaac Jermy Jnr. and then, on his death,
to his infant daughter. The remaining family soon moved out of Stanfield Hall,
wanting never to reside there again. When the daughter was of age, she married
into another Norfolk landowning family – the Gwyns and her husband thus
inherited the estate. Interestingly, all subsequent Gwyns included the name
Jermy in their son’s names – still fearing claims maybe? They were of course
quite unrelated to the ancient Jermy family.
The Estate was gradually sold off and the Hall was later owned by a local
farmer and then by a retired doctor. It was then purchased by a local businessman. So, as we’ve now seen, Stanfield Hall was once the notorious focal point
of a tragic ‘ménage a trois’ – between Isaac Jermy Jermy, nee Preston
Snr, John Larner and James Blomfield Rush –
arising out of William Jermy’s controversial Will, and the earlier lawyer,
Isaac Preston’s scheming predelictions.
John Larner and Thomas
Jermy both died later in the 19th Century without making
any further claims. But John Larner’s grandsons did seek publicity in national
newspapers on two occasions in the 1920s about the alleged fraud. But no proof
was ever forthcoming from the Oxfordshire family concerning their alleged
descent from the last, or one of the last of the Jermys – John Jermy, the
illiterate day-labourer of Gt Yarmouth, allegedly bought off for a mere £20 by
Isaac Preston, William Jermy’s family solicitor.
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