Tragedy in Stapleford Tawney

Coroners' records can make fascinating if macabre reading. Two Elizabethan examples from Stapleford Tawney can be found in the Essex Record Office [T/A 428/1/89 and T/A 428/1/112].

On 20h May 1593, a coroner's jury enquired into the death of Thomas Waylett. In one long breathless sentence the clerk records "that on 13'h May the said Waylett was there [in Stapleford Tawney] driving a cart with three horses and a gelding when he stopped the cart and a wheel struck a mound of earth and by this one side was raised and the wood fell off onto the said Waylett and crushed him, whereby he died on 17th May following." The parish registers show that he was buried the day he died.

The coroner's enquiry continues, "The wood worth 2/8d remained in the hands of John Waylett and the cart worth 8/8d in the hands of Joan Luter of Stapleford aforesaid, widow [Joan Luther of Suttons Manor]." Why did they need to record the value and whereabouts of the wood and cart? The answer lies in the curious law of deodand. It was believed that any object or animal which contributed to someone's death somehow shared in the guilt. The object or its value in money was forfeited to the crown, which applied it to charitable use. Deodands were not formally abolished until 1846.

The jury's verdict on the death was "By misfortune".

Seven years later in 1600 there was an even more grisly case - the death of Joan, wife of William Bone, tiler, of Stapleford Tawney. "On 16h December between 8 and 9 in the morning, the said Joan being in the house of George Sherbolt there [in Stapleford Tawney], went out of the house to a wood called Highfield Springe and with a knife worth 2d cut her throat, giving herself a mortal wound 2" deep and 3" wide of which she died instantly." The verdict was "Felo de se", or suicide.

Whatever possessed her to do such a terrible thing? Why was she in George Sherbolt's house and not her own home? The parish registers give few clues. Joan and William had been married for 14 years but no children are recorded. George Sherbolt (usually spelt Shadbolt) had married only 4 years before and already had two children, with another on the way at the time of Joan's death. Perhaps Joan worked in some way for this young growing family. Whatever her situation, she went out that December morning to "Highfield Spring". A spring is an Essex name for a small wood, either in a plantation or a strip along a field boundary. The name High Field appears on an 18th century map of Little Tawney Hall land and has a strip of woodland down one side. The 1837 Tithe Map identifies the wood as High Field Spring. It is still there, by the brook behind Howfields and Brookmead Cottages, but is now known as Well Eaves.

There is no record of Joan's burial in the church registers. Suicide was a crime until quite recently and, like other criminals, suicides were not given a Christian burial. Perhaps poor Joan Bone was buried in the wood where she died.