A Comprehensive History of Norwich

by A. D. Bayne

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a near relation to the recorder, who, when he came into possession of his estates, employed Rush as his steward, but rescinded his leases, having found that they were illegal.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 30th 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.