Through East Anglia in a Motor Car

by James Edmund Vincent

Truth to tell, it was not the first time of reading. The late Sir Llewelyn Turner, of Carnarvon, was one of those rare men who, inhabiting remote corners of the provinces, escape provincialism and retain intelligent appreciation of public affairs and a sympathetic interest in all sorts of events. In the year 1902, having committed to paper his memories and opinions upon a large number of subjects, and being all but eighty years old, he entrusted me with the task of preparing his MS. for the printers; and he had the satisfaction of seeing himself in print, to the extent of some five hundred pages with illustrations, before he died. Among the miscellaneous chapters of the book is one entitled "Stanfield Hall and its Terrible Tragedies." It is, of course, far too long for quotation, but it is also a treasure-house of nice points, some of them perhaps new even to precise students of the history of crime.

"In the year 18— I accepted an invitation from my valued friend, connection, and old schoolfellow, Colonel Boileau, to pay him a visit in this interesting old moated house, the scene of fearful murders and bloodshed, viz., the murders of Mr. Isaac Jermy, the Recorder of Norwich, of his son Mr. Isaac Jermy Jermy, and the shooting of Mrs. Jermy Jermy, the son's wife, and her maid, by probably one of the greatest scoundrels that ever disgraced humanity, James Bloomfield Rush." The quotation will serve to show that my old friend's literary method is too leisurely and minute to justify the repetition of the story in his own words. Truth to tell he rambled somewhat and was not unduly particular about the sequence of events. Still it may be possible after study of his monograph, to produce a narrative of this crime having something more of freshness than would follow from reference to the text-books of crime; for these murders, it must be remembered, were on a colossal scale, and the case, although simple enough in its legal aspect, has a place among the celebrated crimes by virtue of its wholesale character, its beginnings in long-planned roguery, and its culmination in thorough-paced brutality. The foundations of the programme of crime which was finished on the 28th of November, 1848, were laid many years before, and it is a curious study in the wickedness of which human nature is capable to trace the evolution of the scheme.

In the second half of the eighteenth century the then head of the Jermy family held Stanfield Hall and its estate as, probably, his predecessors of the same name had held it for centuries. Jermiin is one of the Norfolk names of early date for which Mr. Walter Rye claims a Danish origin, and he was probably a Jermy (or letters to that effect) who, in Tudor times, built Stanfield Hall, and moated it round and about. At any rate a Jermy held it when our story opens. A poor relation of the name sold his reversionary interest in the estate to a Mr. Preston, and Mr. Preston came into the estate, "in the shoes of" the poor relation, and was able to settle down in Stanfield Hall. Outside the lodge gates lay the Home Farm, having James Rush for its tenant, a plausible fellow, it would seem, but a whole-souled rascal at heart. Ascertaining that his landlord was going to London by coach on a given day, Rush engaged the three remaining inside places for himself, and so agreeable did he contrive to make himself to the old man on the journey that he returned to Stanfield not merely as tenant of the Home Farm, but also as accredited agent of the estate. As such he had access to Mr. Preston's title-deeds, which he stole before Mr. Preston died.

So Mr. Preston the elder slept with his fathers, if he had any, and Mr. Isaac Preston his son reigned in his stead, Rush remaining agent and tenant of the Home Farm; and, as Mr. Isaac Preston was Recorder of Norwich, the beautiful old house within easy access of the great town suited his needs admirably. He settled down in it at once, and later, as we shall see, he began to think of adding to the estate. When exactly the Recorder discovered that the title-deeds were missing my authority does not relate, but probabilities seem to point to an early discovery, coupled with a suspicion, which was perhaps difficult to bring home, that Rush had annexed them. That would give Rush a hold over the Recorder, and it is only on that hypothesis that the Recorder's subsequent conduct in relation to Rush can be explained. At one and the same time we find Rush practically bankrupt, and the heirs of the original Jermys egged on by Rush into an attempt to recover the family estate in the Court of Chancery. The Recorder really was in rather a tight place, for the simple reason that he could not have proved his title without the deeds, and that he could not bring the theft of them home to Rush. Still he was Recorder of Norwich and a person of consideration, and when the claimants, weary of the delays of the Court of Chancery, organized a small army of emergency men in Norwich, took possession of the house by force and held it, barricading the windows and the bridge over the moat, the dragoons then quartered in Norwich soon restored the peace. In so acting the claimants were but following an ancient precedent of the county of Norfolk, for, early in the fifteenth century, the Duke of Norfolk besieged Caister Castle, built by "that renowned knight and valiant soldier" Sir John Falstolf, then deceased, and occupied, on what ground does not appear clearly from the Paston Letters, by Sir John Paston's family. There were, however, material differences between the two cases: the first of them being that the Duke had apparently at least a show of title to Caister Castle through the Courts, while in this case the claimants were anticipating the judgment of the Court, and the next being a trifle of four centuries, for it was so recently as April, 1839, that John Larner, Daniel Wingfield, and eighty others, the emergency army in fact, were indicted for riot at Stanfield Hall. Still it is not easy to understand how, after so lawless a proceeding at so recent a date, the presiding judge could have passed, as he did, a series of sentences of from three months' to one week's imprisonment. True it is that the Recorder recommended them to mercy as ignorant persons "actuated by a mistaken notion of property"; but the sentences are still hard to understand. So, for that matter, are many sentences in these days.

At about the same time the Recorder brought a suit (Preston v. Rush) against Rush for breach of covenant, no doubt in relation to the Home Farm, and it was clearly after this that the Recorder went through the process, expensive in those days, of taking the name of Jermy because he "found that it was necessary by the old settlements of the estate that the owner should bear the name of Jermy."

A year earlier than the riot, so far as I can make out the dates, some land called the Potash Farm came into the market, and it is clear from the Recorder's conduct over this matter that he felt himself to be very much at the mercy of Rush. He must have known Rush to be practically insolvent, he knew that the title-deeds were missing, and he probably suspected Rush; yet he sent out Rush as his agent to bid for the Potash Farm, which adjoined Stanfield Park. Rush came back from the auction, having bought the farm, not for his master, but for himself, at a price greater than that to which his master had limited him; and the Recorder actually lent him £5000, repayable in ten years and secured by mortgage, wherewith to complete the purchase. Of course the price may have been considerably more than £5000, and the bargain may have seemed on the face of it as promising as that which the original Preston made with the "poor relation"; but it all sounds as if Rush had a stronger hold of the Recorder than even the possession of the title-deeds would give him, or as if the Recorder were a strangely nervous and foolish man.

Eight years passed away, one knows not how so far as these persons are concerned, and the end of them found Rush a widower, with several children, occupying the Potash Farm and holding another at Felmingham, fourteen miles off, also from the Recorder, now Mr. Isaac Jermy, by due form of law. At the end of those eight years Rush advertised for a governess, engaged one Emily Sandford, who replied to the advertisement, and betrayed her; but she continued to live with him. Then came November of 1848, on the last day of which the £5000 was payable, and the Recorder, often entreated, would not give Rush time. It does not appear that the Chancery suit had failed utterly and hopelessly, but it is clear from the sequel that the original Jermys had fallen very low in the world, and the Recorder, recognizing that they were no longer dangerous, may have found courage. If so, it cost him his life. The day of fate and blood was the 28th of November. On the evening of that day Mr. Jermy, according to his usual custom, one no doubt familiar to Rush, went to the hall door at half-past eight to look at the prospects of the weather; and the night was fine for the time of year, for five persons, servant girls and their sweethearts, were, as the evidence at the trial showed, gossiping by the gate beyond the moat, only thirty-five yards from the hall door. No sooner did Mr. Jermy come out than Rush, who was disguised, shot him dead with a pistol, the muzzle of which must almost have touched his body. "The fourth, fifth, and sixth ribs were shattered, the entire body of the heart was carried away." The loiterers on the bridge ran away in terror. Mr. Jermy the younger, rushing from the drawing-room to see what was the matter, was met, and shot dead on the spot, by Rush in the corridor. Mrs. Jermy the younger, hurrying into the hall, saw her husband's body, ran to call the butler, Watson, and was met by her maid Eliza Chastney. Rush encountered them both in a passage, shot Mrs. Jermy in the arm and the maid in the thigh and groin. Mrs. Jermy's daughter and the cook ran out by the back door and took refuge in the coach-house; the coachman jumped into the moat, swam across, and rode to Wymondham for help. As for the butler, he heard the first shot, went into the passage, "saw an armed man with a cloak and mask who motioned him to keep off," and—well, he kept off.

Rush was arrested at Potash Farm before three o'clock the next morning; his trial, at which Emily Sandford was a most valuable witness for the Crown and a most deadly one to him, attracted immense attention. Sir Llewelyn says: "The excitement throughout the nation exceeded anything of the kind ever known, and The Times actually sent down a printing press to Norwich to report daily the incidents of the magisterial and coroner's inquiries."

Perhaps it need hardly be said that inquiry has shown the statement about The Times and the printing press to be entirely without foundation: for, since The Times as a whole has always been printed in London, and London has always been its place of publication, nothing could have been gained by sending a printing press to Norwich. It would have been just as wise to send a piano, a plough, or a pump. But it does not follow that Sir Llewelyn Turner is to be distrusted in other matters because he knew nothing of the mechanical technicalities of journalism. What happened, no doubt, was that The Times secured and published a very full report, and good folks, wondering how the miracle was performed, hit upon the idea of a special dispatch of a printing press, and were satisfied because an explanation which they could not understand had been set up. Suggestions quite as impossible are made in these days. A correspondent, who very likely cannot write shorthand, is frequently asked whether he hands his shorthand notes directly to the printers or to the telegraphists, neither of whom would be able to cope with the notes if he were capable of making them. Huge crowds attended the funeral of the victims at Wymondham. Immense excitement also was caused by the trial of Rush at Norwich Assizes, although the issue cannot have been in doubt for a moment after the evidence of Emily Sandford. Indeed, the report of the trial is only interesting now as showing, by comparison with discoveries made later, how little the police had found out, and as bearing, especially with reference to the violence of Rush at the trial, upon the kinship of homicidal crime and madness. The attraction of the case consisted then, and consists now, in its sheer brutality and prodigality of bloodshed and in the long series of cunning plots, to be outlined shortly, by which it was preceded. Within the space of a very few minutes Rush had murdered two persons and had grievously wounded two others; he had shown himself to be quite an exceptional paragon of villainy, and public curiosity to see so hardened a ruffian was natural. Nor need it be matter for surprise that the public execution of Rush at Norwich, where the remains of the Norman castle on the Mound in the heart of the city were then the gaol and the place of execution, was attended by a vast concourse of people. If ever there was a good excuse for gloating over a wretch ignominiously done to death it was present in the case of James Rush the wholesale murderer.

In all these thoughts stirred by the sight of Stanfield Hall there is, it may be, little of novelty to students of crimes and criminals, even though many of the details may have been forgotten. But my old friend's monograph has a peculiar interest and value because, although he wrote with the failing memory of one well-stricken in years, it is possible to follow in it an elaborate development of criminal cunning almost, if not quite, without parallel in the history of crime. Also it enables one to see a long string of earlier crimes, probably committed by Rush, which, while they could not have been mentioned at his trial, would have well qualified him for admission to the roll of "unmitigated miscreants," disgracefully distinguished by "pre-eminence in ill-doing," whom Mr. Thomas Seccombe and his associates gibbeted in Twelve Bad Men (Fisher Unwin, 1894). His preparations for the crime were of the most elaborate character; his plans for taking the most complete advantage of it when it had been committed, and for so perpetrating it that suspicion might fall upon others, were of an absolutely diabolical ingenuity. Let some of the details of those plans be enumerated. He had provided numerous disguises, some of which were not discovered until long after he had been hanged. He had covered with straw, as if for cattle, his most convenient path to the Hall, and his footsteps could not be traced on the straw. He had made Emily Stanford drive with him towards the Hall, so that she might be seen with him by a turnpike-keeper and the lodge-keeper, on the 10th of October, 1848, and the 21st of November, 1848. He had forged documents of both those dates, which were afterwards found under the floor of a cupboard in Potash Farm. The first was an agreement between the Recorder and himself whereby the Recorder gave him three more years for the payment of the £5000; the next was an agreement between the same parties that, if Rush gave up the missing title-deeds, the Recorder would burn the mortgage deed of Potash Farm and give Rush a lease of the Felmingham estate. It was further agreed that Rush should do all he could to assist the Recorder in retaining possession. There was also a forged lease of Felmingham to Rush. To all these Emily Sandford had signed her name as witness without knowing the contents. To the efficacy of them all the death of the Recorder was indispensable, for of course he would have denounced the forgery at once, and the death of Mr. Jermy the younger, who knew his father's affairs intimately, would be a decided help. But Rush, although he had no scruples at all about taking life, as he proved very conclusively, had a very considerable regard for the skin of his own neck. The new Jermys were to be ruthlessly exterminated; the old Jermys, or some of them (he did not care how many), were to be hanged, and Rush was to become a rich man. He inveigled some of the old Jermys into the vicinity of Stanfield Hall on the day of the murders; he left on the floor of one of the passages in the Hall a warning in printed letters:—