43 Facts About James Murrell

James Murrell had seventeen children with his wife, and the family later moved back to Essex, settling in Hadleigh, where Murrell gained work as a shoemaker.

James Murrell has continued to attract the attention of historians and folklorists studying English folk magic, and is referenced in works by scholars like Ronald Hutton, Owen Davies, and Ralph Merrifield.

James Murrell's parents were named Edward Murrell and Hannah Murrell, nee Dockrell.

On 12 August 1812, James Murrell married Elizabeth Francis Button at St Olave's Church, Bermondsey in Southwark.

On 26 December 1820, James Murrell returned to Essex to attend the wedding of his sister Hannah at Hawkwell's St Mary the Virgin Church.

Elizabeth James Murrell died in Hadleigh on 16 April 1839, aged forty-nine.

However, in the June 1844 wedding documentation of Eliza, James Murrell was listed as a labourer, and on the October 1844 marriage documentation of Matilda, he was listed as a herb doctor.

James Murrell was noted for wearing a hard hat, bobbed tail coat, and iron goggles, while carrying a whalebone umbrella and a basket into which he placed the herbs that he collected.

In south-east Essex, James Murrell was known as "The Devil's Master", a title that he himself used as a self-description.

James Murrell cultivated an air of mystery about himself by keeping himself largely apart from wider community life, speaking seldom, and traveling largely at night.

James Murrell's house was locally known as a "place to avoid" and those visiting him reportedly often waited for some time outside, plucking up the courage to enter.

James Murrell possessed a library of books, including works on astrology and astronomy, conjuration, and medical texts.

James Murrell wrote a number of personal notebooks containing information on such topics, the last of which survived into at least the 1950s.

James Murrell claimed that he could exorcise malevolent spirits, destroy witches, and restore lost or stolen property to its owner, as well as providing services as an astrologer, herbalist, and animal healer.

James Murrell charged a halfpenny for curing warts, and two shillings and six pence for breaking a witch's spell.

James Murrell was reputed to cure sick animals by passing his hands over their affected area, muttering a prayer, and then hanging an amulet about their neck, and was requested to use these powers at farms in Essex, Suffolk, and northern Kent.

James Murrell did however receive postal correspondence from a range of places, including from Essex girls who were working as maids in London.

James Murrell used witch bottles as part of his magical practices, and, during the 1950s, the folklorist Eric Maple encountered claims that James Murrell was able to summon anyone he wished using them, including individuals who had gone overseas.

James Murrell experimented with the use of a witch bottle constructed out of iron; he had two such devices created by a local smith, Stephen Choppen, and had the plug at the mouth soldered up before the bottle was placed in a fire as part of an anti-bewitchment spell.

James Murrell did things that wouldn't be allowed today - them witchcrafts, I mean.

James Murrell is either a very good man or a very bad one, and I can't make up my mind which.

James Murrell was a witch, and she cursed the girl who presently began to scream like a cat and bark like a dog.

James Murrell placed in the fire a bottle containing hair and nail-clippings from the victim.

James Murrell told everyone to keep absolutely silent while they awaited the arrival of the witch.

Several accounts about James Murrell's activities have been preserved, either because they were reported on by the regional press or because they were passed down in oral tradition.

James Murrell's family believed that a witch was to blame, with Murrell being called in to free her of the perceived bewitchment.

James Murrell commissioned the local blacksmith to create an iron witch bottle, into which he placed toe-nail clippings and locks of hair belonging to the putative victim.

When Burrell was unable to help, they proceeded to consult James Murrell, inviting him to come to East Thorpe to remove the curse.

James Murrell's planned visit generated much anticipation in East Thorpe's community, with the local rector attempting to calm the situation by requesting that the parish relieving officer move the allegedly bewitched girl to the union-house, where she could be examined by the parish surgeon.

Butcher had gone to James Murrell, asking him to use his skills to locate and retrieve his stolen property; when James Murrell failed to do so, Butcher turned to the police to apprehend the culprit.

James Murrell wouldn't tell her, though, unless she promised not to tell anyone.

Local records indicate that James Murrell died in Hadleigh on 16 December 1860.

Conversely, Maple recorded a story that in his final hours, James Murrell was visited by the local curate; James Murrell was frustrated by the latter's attempts to administer religious consolation and eventually scared him off by shouting out "I am the Devil's master".

An alternate story spread that James Murrell had been killed by a witch-bottle that had been placed into a fire by an aggrieved local man who believed that James Murrell had bewitched his donkey and thus caused its death.

James Murrell continued to remain the subject of local discussion after his death.

One young boy reported having observed the ghost of James Murrell collecting herbs at some point after this death; he passed this story on to his daughter, who told it to Maple.

James Murrell noted in particular that Pickingill was accredited with the ability to command the witches of Canewdon to reveal themselves, a trait that Downes had previously attributed to Murrell.

James Murrell learned about Murrell, and decided "to write a story about him", believing that "some might find it hard to believe that such a man, practicing such arts and wielding such influence, could have lived so recently within so short a distance from London".

The landlord of the Castle Inn, a local pub, showed Morrison to the house in which James Murrell had once lived, and the journalist was able to meet with Choppen, the smith who had made James Murrell's witch bottles.

At the turn of the century between the 19th and 20th, the Reverend King, an antiquarian who worked as the vicar of Leigh, began to examine James Murrell's life, believing it to have had some significance, although never completed his research.

Morrison discovered that James Murrell was in possession of the manuscript of Key of Solomon grimoire on which he based his magical practise.

Troubled by the mixed reception that James Murrell had, she expressed the view that he was a good man.

James Murrell commented that Murrell's power to control mechanical objects had remained within the family, characterising them as "natural mechanics".