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The St. Osyth Witch Trials Part 5
Priory Education Centre
The sad story of the women accused of witchcraft did not stay buried. 339 years later, in 1921, men were digging in the sandy soil behind a cottage on Mill Street when their spade hit something hard and two human skeletons were unearthed. The owner of the cottage, Charles Brooker swiftly declared them to be the bones of Ursula Kemp and Elizabeth Bennett, the two women hung for witchcraft.
The St. Osyth Witch Trials Part 4
Priory Education Centre
Perhaps from fear, or promise of a lighter sentence or maybe because of past grudges, Ursula accused other local women of being involved in the witchcraft, they in turn accused more. Brain thoroughly investigated each accusation until the trial included 13 women and 1 man from St. Osyth and local villages. It is hard to know what motivated Brian to pursue these cases with such zeal. It could have been that religion played a key part.
The St. Osyth Witch Trials Part 3
Priory Education Centre
Brian Darcy seemed to be proud of how he held the investigation and employed a scribe about whom only the initials are known ‘W.W.’ to record the events. This he published in a pamphlet only a month after the trials took place. For several of the accused he questioned their young children. It must have been incredibly frightening to stand in the hall at St. Clere’s surrounded by well-to-do adults as a poor, unschooled, 8 year old child.
