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James Murrell (c. 1785 – 16 December 1860) was an English cunning man, or professional folk magician, who spent most of his life in the Essex town of Hadleigh. Historian Ronald Hutton has characterised Murrell as the "most celebrated cunning man in the whole of nineteenth-century southern England". Born in Rochford, Essex, Murrell grew up in the area before moving to Southwark in London, where he was married in 1812. Having seventeen children with his wife, they 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. On a number of occasions his magical activities gained the attention of the local press. His activities proved controversial in the local area, with many educated figures criticising what they saw as his role in encouraging superstition; his death certificate recorded his profession as that of a "quack doctor". Murrell's fame greatly increased after his death when he was made the subject, albeit in a highly fictionalised form, of a 1900 novel by Arthur Morrison. Morrison also produced a more objective study of the cunning man, with further research later conducted by Essex folklorist Eric Maple. Murrell has continued to attract the attention of historians and folklorists studying English folk magic, and is referenced in works by scholars like Hutton, Owen Davies, and Ralph Merrifield. ==Life and family== James Murrell was born in Rochford, Essex, and then baptised on 9 October 1785 in the St. Mary the Virgin Church in Hawkwell, Essex. His parents were named Edward Murrell and Hannah Murrell, née Dockrell. After completing school, Murrell entered into an apprenticeship with the surveyor G. Emans, who operated from Burnham, a town where Murrell's brother Edward had moved to. There is evidence that Murrell subsequently moved to London, where he worked as a stillman at a chemist's shop in the 1800s or early 1810s. On 12 August 1812, Murrell married Elizabeth Francis Button at St. Olave's Church, Bermondsey in Southwark. Button was also from Essex, having been baptised in Hadleigh on 5 December 1790. Between 1814 and 1834, there are baptismal and burial records of the couple having seventeen children, many of whom did not survive infancy. On 26 December 1820, Murrell returned to Essex to attend the wedding of his sister Hannah at Hawkwell's St. Mary the Virgin Church. She and her new husband Daniel Whitwell then proceeded to move to nearby Canewdon, with Murrell visiting them there on a regular basis thereafter. By the early 1840s, one of Murrell's daughters, Louisa, had moved in with the childless Daniel and Hannah. This being the case, it would have been likely that Murrell had at least heard of the Pickingill family who lived in the small Canewdon community; one of the Pickingill's children, George Pickingill, would also grow up to be a cunning man. Elizabeth Murrell died in Hadleigh on 16 April 1839, aged forty-nine. The cause of death was cited as "inflammation of the chest", and her body was buried on 21 April in Hadleigh's St. James the Less Church. By the time of the 1841 national census, Murrell was documented as a shoemaker living in Hadleigh with four of his children (Eliza, Matilda, Edward, and Eleanor). However, in the June 1844 wedding documentation of Eliza, Murrell was listed as a labourer, and on the October 1844 marriage documentation of Matilda, he was listed as a herb doctor. By the 1851 national census, he again specified his profession as that of a shoemaker, and recorded that he was living in Hadleigh with his children Edward, Eleanor, and Louisa, as well as with his grandson William Spendle. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「James Murrell」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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