Printed from Woolley & Wallis

Description

An unusual group of Staffordshire figures relating to the murders at Stanfield Hall, 19th century, including figures of the murderer, James Bloomfield Rush, his mistress, Emily Sandford, a model of Stanfield Hall and another of Potash Farm, Rush's tenant farm, minor damages, 24.5cm max. (4)

The double murder at Stanfield Hall took place on 28th November 1848. James Bloomfield Rush was the tenant farmer of his victims, Isaac Jermy and his son of the same name, who were shot dead on the porch and in the hallway of their residence, Stanfield Hall in Norwich. The motive behind the killings was the imminent foreclosure of the debt Rush owed to Jermy on his residence, Potash Farm, with Rush also intending to kill Mrs Jermy (wife of the younger Isaac) and their servant, Eliza Chastney. Both women were badly injured but survived. Rush had asked his mistress, Emily Sandford, to provide him with a false alibi, which she refused to do. Despite a clumsy disguise of false whiskers, Rush was recognised by the two survivors, whose testimony was enough to see him hanged at Norwich Castle on 21st April 1849. He is buried in the grounds.

Provenance: from a descendant of the surviving Mrs Jermy, who remarried after the event.