Condemned to death?
Ephraim CLOSE
In the course of a one-name study one comes across a good
many interesting characters, and in following up their stories one can also learn
about the conditions and key issues of the times in which they lived. The first thing that makes Ephraim CLOSE
stand out is his relatively uncommon name.
The study has uncovered just five
people in England named Ephraim CLOSE from just two families, each well
separated from the others by geography, age or both, making identification a
good deal easier than it is for the hundreds of John, James, Elizabeth or Mary
CLOSEs in the study.
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Holy Cross, Avening geograph.co.uk https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/ |
Ephraim CLOSE was born in 1808[2]
was christened in Avening church, Gloucestershire, on 19 March 1808, the son of
William CLOSE, the Avening parish clerk, and his wife Mary (formerly TRUMAN)[3].
Ephraim worked as a stone mason[4],
living for most of his life in the Cotswold village of Avening. He is described as being 5ft 5¼in tall, with brown hair, grey eyes, a fresh complexion and a round face.[1]
Incident at Cherington
The second remarkable thing about
Ephraim is an extraordinary escapade, together with two partners in crime. The story begins just a mile or so down the
road in the neighbouring village of Cherington, at the 12th-Century church
of St Nicholas, in the autumn of 1831.
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St Nicholas church Cherington geograph.org.uk - 323322
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When the parish clerk, Joseph
FOWLES, who was also a bell ringer, went to the church one Wednesday morning in
December 1831 he discovered that the church door had been broken open, and that
one of the bells was missing. It must
have been some operation to remove this bell; the floor of the bell tower
had to be lifted in order to get the bell, said to weigh four hundredweight,
down to the ground, so it was evident that several men must have been involved
in removing it.
In an effort to solve the mystery, the
services of a London police officer were secured to investigate the matter, and
a reward of ten guineas was offered, but it was over six months before it
became evident in July 1832 that the
bell, said to be worth £20, had been
added to the five already in use in Avening church. The Cherington parish clerk
Joseph FOWLES examined the bell and recognised it as the stolen one because of
a distinctive flaw in the side. However,
although the Avening churchwardens allowed the bell to be taken down from the
belfry, the parishioners would not allow it to be returned to Cherington before
the criminal case was resolved.
Arrested and charged
Three suspects, Urias COX[5],
William RISBY and Ephraim CLOSE, were arrested and charged with “feloniously,
burglariously and sacrilegiously breaking open the parish church of Cherrington[6]
and stealing therefrom a certain bell the property of the inhabitants &
parishioners of Cherrington aforesaid.”[7] Urias COX and William RISBY were both married
men; Ephraim was single.
On the Sunday morning before the
theft was discovered, as the Cherington parish clerk Joseph FOWLES was chiming
one of the church bells, he saw Ephraim CLOSE walk into the church, look
steadily at the belfry, and then go away again without staying for the service. Evidently he would have known Ephraim CLOSE as
a fellow bell-ringer from the neighbouring church, and thought no more about it
at the time, but once the truth came to light he remembered the incident and
testified to it during the trial which took place at Gloucester Assizes during
the week ending Friday 17 August 1832
Evidence
According to newspaper reports[8],
it transpired that although the good
folk of Cherington had remained in the dark, many of their neighbours in Avening
knew exactly what had happened to their bell.
One witness, Ennice FORD, had heard COX and CLOSE saying they would like
to have six bells to ring at Christmas. At
the trial it became clear that the purpose of the three accused was not only to
celebrate Christmas, but also to prepare for a celebration of the
Representation of the People Act 1832, otherwise known as the Great Reform Act. There had been a long political battle regarding
parliamentary reform over the previous few years; two reform bills had failed,
but the third succeeded and finally came into force in 1832. The parishioners of Avening were said to be “all
reformers”[9]
and seemed to have regarded the acquisition of the extra bell as a source of amusement
rather than a serious crime.
A road surveyor, Mr W SMART, claimed
to have seen a truck containing the bell being drawn by COX, RISBY and CLOSE at
two o’clock in the morning at the time of the theft in 1831. He allegedly
followed the truck and saw the accused carry the bell into Avening church. However, he had remained silent about the
incident until after the bell was found in July 1832. Although the three
accused called witnesses to repudiate Mr SMART’s testimony and “respectable
witnesses” testified to their excellent character, the jury found them guilty. One newspaper report[10]
of the trial concludes by reporting “Judgment of death was recorded against the
Prisoners.”
Sentence of death?
Anyone not familiar with the
terminology of the time might conclude that the three were executed, but this
is not the case. Another press report[11]
gives a little more detail: “The jury however
found the prisoners guilty, and
sentence of death was recorded. - Mr Baron GURNEY said that in consequence of
the good character the prisoners had received, he would give their case his
humane consideration.” The prison record[12]
for Ephraim CLOSE of Avening, age 24 (with similar entries for William RISBY
and Urias COX) notes the sentence like this:
“Death recorded, six calr. months in penit’y – Removed 27th Aug 1832 see penitentiary register”
It is
important to understand the significance of the term “death recorded” in the
early 19th Century English courts.
At that time there were a great many crimes for which the legal
requirement was a death sentence, and it had become common for a royal pardon
to be issued in many cases. Legally a
death sentence had to be spoken aloud in court in order to be effective. To avoid the need for frequent pardons to be
issued, The Judgement of Death Act 1823 allowed a written sentence of death to
be recorded, which in effect meant that the accused would not be executed and might
be given an alternative sentence without the issue of an official pardon, which in the present case meant six months’
imprisonment. A recent
misunderstanding of the significance of “death recorded” sentences led to the withdrawal
of a book by Naomi Wolf, as reported by the BBC in October 2019[13]
Three times married
After the excitement of events in
1831/2, soon after his release from prison Ephraim settled down to married life.
On 10 July 1834[14]
aged 26 he married a dressmaker, Ann STAFFORD, 37, at Holy Cross, Avening, who
was the sister of ‘partner in crime’ Urias COX’s wife. Ephraim and Ann were recorded as residents of
Avening in the 1841, 1851 and 1861 census.
Ann died at the age of 70 in 1867[15] There were no known children of this
marriage. On 24 March 1870 Ephraim, 62, married Mrs Elizabeth HALL, formerly ROBINSON,
64, at Wotton-under-Edge[16],
where the couple were recorded as living in 1871.[17]
Elizabeth died there in 1873.[18]
By 1881 Ephraim was back in Avening, aged 73, staying at the Bell
Inn with his nephew William ESSEX, the publican. One might have expected Ephraim to quietly live
out his old age as a widower, but there was one final surprise: some time
between April and June 1885, at the age of 77, he married a widow, Mary HUMPHRIES,
formerly DYER, who was 20 years his junior.
Sadly, they had very little time together, since Ephraim died on 12
October 1885.[19]
[1] Gloucester
county jail record, 27 Aug 1832
[2]
Age consistent with census records.
[3]
Avening parish register. (Bishop’s
Transcript has 28 March 1808).
[4]
Occupation confirmed by census record HO107/362/1 F39 P3
[5] Press
reports and criminal records have “Uriah” but Avening church and census records
consistently have “Urias”
[6] 19th
Century records have ‘Cherrington’, modern records ‘Cherington’.
[7] Gloucester
county jail record, 27 Aug 1832
[8] The
Morning Posr (London) 20 Aug 1832; The Examiner (London) 26 Aug
1832. Similar reports in other papers.
[9] The Examiner
(London), August 26, 1832
[10] The
Morning Posr (London) 20 Aug 1832
[11] The
Examiner (London) 26 Aug 1832
[12] Gloucester
county jail record, 27 Aug 1832
[14] Avening
parish register
[15] GRO
1867 Q2 Stroud 6a 199
[16] Bristol
Mercury, 2 Apr 1870; GRO 1870 Q1 Dursley 6a 315
[17] RG10/2591
F50 P6 S37
[18] GRO
1873 Q4 Dursley 6a 150
[19]
GRO 1885 Q4 Stroud 6a 221; National Probate Calendar 1886.
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