Nat Gould

William Murrell 1773-1825

William Murrell was born on 16 June 1773 at Mileham near East Dereham in Norfolk, the son of John Murrell 1748-1817 and his wife Mary (maiden surname unknown).

On 16 March 1794 he married Martha Stacey 1772-1852 at Necton in Norfolk. She was born in 1772 at Wendling in Norfolk, the daughter of John Stacey 1733-1790 and his wife nee Ann Minn 1735-1792. They had the following children:

Mary Ann Murrell. She was born on 2 July 1794 at Little Dunham in Norfolk, and was married to John Clarke 1796-1856. They lived at East Dereham. She died in 1872.

Martha Murrell. She was born in 1795 at Little Dunham, and died in 1796.

Martha Murrell 1797-1875. She was born in 1797 at Beeston in Norfolk, and was married to John Bennington 1802-1855 at Wendling in Norfolk. He was born on 29 January 1802 at Wendling, the son of Benjamin Bennington of Wendling and his wife nee Ellen Skipper. She died in 1875.

William Murrell. He was born in 1799 at Wendling. He married Frances Webb, and they lived at Hingham in Norfolk, where he died in 1867.

Their father William Murrell died on 1 January 1825 at Wendling aged 51 years.

The lives of William and Martha Murrell and their family in rural Norfolk at the beginning of the nineteenth century were blighted by widespread poverty and starvation which led to increased crime:

"Court of King's Bench ... The Adjourned Sessions from Holt to Norwich, was holden on Wednesday last, for the purpose of trying criminals in custody only ... The Chairman, in his Charge to the Grand Jury observed, that the present adjournment was merely an experiment on the part of the Magistrates, in consequence of the multiplicity of criminals; under the idea that it would shorten the period of their attendance at the regular sessions; and likewise, might be the means of diminishing the number of offences (the increase of which he expressed his regret at perceiving) by punishment following so speedily after the commissions; both of which purposes he remarked it was earnestly hoped would be effectuated by the present arrangement ... William Murrell and Martha his wife, were severally indicted for stealing on the 16th of November last, a quantity of butter, the property of James Hubbard, of Wendling - Murrell was convicted of the offence and sentenced to a fortnight's imprisonment in Walsingham Bridewell: his wife pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to be imprisonment in the Castle for one month." Norfolk Chronicle 4 December 1819.

In mitigation of these convictions, it should be remembered that this was a time of acute economic depression in the post Waterloo years, resulting from the country having been at war continually for some seventy years. And that 1819 was the year of the Peterloo Massacre of peaceful protesters by the militia in Manchester. Not until the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 was there any respite in widespread starvation, although that led to the ruination of domestic farming.

For example in 1822 newspaper advertisements appeared in the Norfolk Chronicle addressed to the Acting Magistrates in various Norfolk Hundreds asking that they "call a Public Meeting of the Owners and Occupiers of Land in the Hundreds ... to take into consideration the propriety of presenting a Petition to Parliament on the subject of the present Agricultural Distress, and the entire insufficiency of the measures already adopted for the relief thereof." A William Murrell was one of the numerous petitioners. The Acting Magistrates duly appointed a Public Meeting within the month. Norfolk Chronicle 6 April 1822.