James Murrell
Hadleigh, Essex, c.1785–1860
♠ King of Spades | Keyword: Command
James Murrell was born in Rochford, Essex, around 1785, the son of Edward and Hannah Murrell. He trained as a shoemaker, married Elizabeth Button in London in 1812, fathered seventeen children, and settled in Hadleigh on the northern shore of the Thames Estuary, where he spent the rest of his long life doing two things simultaneously: mending shoes, and being the most formidable cunning man in Essex.
He described himself, with evident relish, as the Devil’s Master. This was not false modesty in reverse. He was, by all accounts, a small man: hard hat, bobbed tail coat, hands behind his back, walking along the Essex lanes humming loudly and lost in thought. He wore iron goggles that he said allowed him to see what others could not. He cultivated an air of complete and unassailable authority, and by every account available, it was entirely justified. He travelled only at night. When a new client came to him he always asked the same question first: was their problem high or low? High meant something was working against them supernaturally, and required a different order of response entirely. Low meant herbs, medicine, and practical remedy. For high problems, Murrell summoned good spirits and angels to fight the bad ones, used his famous mirror to identify witches at a distance, and on occasion commissioned ironwork.
The witch bottle story is the best documented of his cases. A girl in a nearby village had been suffering fits for some time, and local opinion had traced the cause to an old woman with a grudge. Murrell was called in. He immediately commissioned the village blacksmith, a man named Stephen Choppen, to forge an airtight iron bottle filled with nail parings, locks of hair, and fluid from the patient. Choppen later recalled that the bottle refused to be welded until Murrell arrived at the forge and blew the fire himself, after which it came together without difficulty. The sealed bottle was placed over a roaring fire. As it heated, a woman was heard beating on a door nearby and crying out for them to stop. The bottle exploded. The fits stopped. The woman fell silent.
His reputation spread on both sides of the Thames Estuary. He was believed to have the power to compel any other witch to submit to his will. He told the people of Leigh, Hadleigh and Canewdon what the future of witchcraft in their parishes would be, and they remembered it for generations. Wealthy clients came alongside poor ones. His death certificate recorded his occupation simply as quack doctor, which suggests his neighbours at the registry office had opinions.
He predicted the date of his own death. He died on 16 December 1860, at the hour he had named. His trunk of magical books and objects was buried by his landlord. His son dug it up. The novelist Arthur Morrison examined the contents before they were dispersed, recording books on astrology and astronomy, old medical books, conjuration texts, and annotated copies of Culpeper’s Complete Herbal and English Physician in Murrell’s own hand. Most of the contents were destroyed in 1956, deemed worthless by those who then held them.
He is buried in Hadleigh churchyard in an unmarked grave. Years later, his son led Arthur Morrison to the spot, by then nothing more than a faint discolouration in the turf. He would probably have considered an unmarked grave beneath his dignity.
The image is a whimsical imagining based on the historical record, not an authentic portrait.