page_title: James Murrell
section_title: Death
hierarchical_section_title: James Murrell / Death
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of the Church of St James the Less, Hadleigh, Essex
context_page_description: James Murrell, also known as Cunning Murrell, was an English cunning man, or professional folk magician, who spent most of his life in the town of Hadleigh in the eastern English county of Essex. In this capacity, he reportedly employed magical means to aid in healing both humans and animals, exorcising malevolent spirits, countering witches, and restoring lost or stolen property to its owner.
  Born in Rochford, Essex, Murrell grew up in the area before moving to Southwark in London, where he was married in 1812. He had seventeen children with his wife, and the family later moved back to Essex, settling in Hadleigh, where Murrell gained work as a shoemaker. At some point he also began working as a cunning man, gaining fame for his work in this field on both sides of the Thames Estuary. Describing himself as "the Devil's Master", he cultivated an air of mystery about himself, also experimenting with the creation of iron witch bottles. On a number of occasions his magical activities gained the attention of the local press. Although many residents valued his services and viewed him as a good and benevolent individual, his activities proved controversial and divisive.
context_section_description: Local records indicate that Murrell died in Hadleigh on 16 December 1860. On his death certificate, his profession was listed as "Quack Doctor", and his cause of death was attributed to "natural causes". On 23 December his body was inhumed into the eastern side of the churchyard at the Church of St James the Less, near to where many of his deceased children had been buried. It was not marked by any tombstone.
  His son later told Morrison that the cunning man had informed his own daughter of the exact time and date at which he would die prior to it actually happening. Another story reports that Murrell took to his death bed aware of his oncoming demise, informing his daughter to turn away the curate "For I be the devil's master as be well knowed. Clergymen den't bother me in the oad time, they shan't now [sic]". Conversely, Maple recorded a story that in his final hours, Murrell was visited by the local curate; 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 Murrell had been killed by a witch-bottle that had been placed into a fire by an aggrieved local man who believed that Murrell had bewitched his donkey and thus caused its death. The archaeologist Ralph Merrifield concluded that this tale was "probably entirely apocryphal". Another story given by Choppen was that Murrell's son Edward – or "Buck" as he was nicknamed – had taken the cunning man's final witch-bottle. Placing the bottle in his household fire, it was there that the bottle exploded and destroyed a wall of Buck's cottage.
  Murrell left no will. His son Edward later claimed that Murrell's landlord soon buried a wooden chest with the old man's papers in the garden of the cottage, deeming their associations with magic to be dangerous. Edward claimed that he subsequently dug the chest up again. Murrell's personal effects were treated as souvenirs, and several were treated as though they retained magical and supernatural associations for many years after his death. Murrell's "trick" telescope was sold by his son for half-a-guinea; the purchaser was allegedly found dead shortly after with half-a-guinea lodged in his throat, resulting in claims that the telescope itself brought bad luck onto anyone who possessed it. In 1960, Maple commented that Murrell's whalebone umbrella had been owned by a local undertaker until fairly recently, while he also noted that Murrell's carved chest was in the possession of a woman who lived at Southend-on-Sea.
caption: Murrell was buried in the churchyard of St James the Less Church, Hadleigh
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