Murder of Ruth Osborne

Background

By the 1700s, belief in witchcraft was fading in England, though it did not vanish overnight. The last official executions for witchcraft happened in 1684, and the final indictment came in 1717. Still, killings linked to suspected witchcraft occurred, as in St Albans in 1700 and Frome in 1731. The Witchcraft Act was repealed in 1736, about fifteen years before Ruth Osborne was killed. One practice that lingered after the repeal was witch swimming, where a person was thrown into water; floating meant guilt, sinking meant innocence.

Ruth Osborne was born in 1682, but little is known of her early years. By 1751, she lived with her husband John Osborne, a labourer born in 1695, in the small settlement of Gubblecote near Tring, Hertfordshire. Over several years, rumours spread that the couple were Jacobites or witches, and specifically that Ruth had bewitched her brother from the neighbouring parish of Haggenson. These rumours made it hard for them to find work, so they relied on poor relief.

In 1745, Ruth asked for buttermilk at John Butterfield’s farm. Butterfield refused, saying he did not have enough for his hogs. Ruth replied that the pretender would have him and his hogs too. Later, Butterfield blamed the deaths of some of his calves on Ruth’s witchcraft.

He eventually had to stop farming and instead ran an alehouse called the Black Horse at Gubblecote Cross from 1751. He suffered repeated fits and continued to blame Ruth. Several customers, including a man named Thomas Colley, suggested he consult a cunning woman. Butterfield sought out such a woman from Northamptonshire, known for curing disease.

She told him he was under a spell from two neighbours, a man and a woman; he believed these were the Osbornes. The cunning woman tried to heal him but failed. According to the Gentleman’s Magazine, she then ordered six men to watch Butterfield’s house day and night with staves and pitchforks, wearing charms around their necks to protect themselves from bewitchment. After this, the idea emerged that the Osbornes should be subjected to a witch swimming.

Murder

John Osborne, like his wife Ruth, was subjected to a similar attack while she lay on the bank. Contrary to a later erroneous report in The Gentleman's Magazine, he lived. After about thirty minutes, someone brought Ruth back into the water, where Thomas Colley turned her around. Tring farmer John Holmes later gave testimony, supported by others, that Colley used a stick to turn and prod her. At one point, she managed to lift her head, cried out, and seized the stick, but Colley wrenched it away and left her lying in the water. He repeatedly pushed her under with the stick until she floated. Ruth was then pulled onto the bank. She died within minutes, having been suffocated by water and mud. Colley then asked the crowd for money, saying he had provided them with entertainment.

Aftermath

Molongs later recalled that roughly an hour after the Osbornes left the Half Moon alive, Ruth Osborne's body was brought back to his house and laid in a bed there. Colley was arrested shortly after the drowning, found to be drunk, and later admitted to his involvement. He was first taken to Tring, then moved to Hertford's County Gaol. Other rioters fled to Buckinghamshire, where constables could not pursue them, and only a handful ever faced trial.

At a coroner's inquest in Tring on 21 May, John Osborne testified that he recognized only two people involved in the riot and ducking: Thomas Colley, already in Hertford jail, and Francis Hopton of Ivinghoe, who seized the couple in the vestry to be ducked. The Gentleman's Magazine incorrectly claimed the inquest had indicted several people for Ruth Osborne's murder, but in reality only Colley was indicted there, though other ringleaders were known.

On 25 April, another inquest took place at the Half Moon, led by Samuel Atkinson, the Hertfordshire coroner serving King George II. He examined Ruth Osborne's body there. Surgeon John Foster inspected her and found no wounds except a graze on one breast, contradicting reports that she had been beaten while in the water. He determined the cause of death as suffocation from water and mud, combined with prolonged exposure to cold ground.

Atkinson also took sworn statements from 25 men from nearby parishes. Three justices of the peace—Rowland Johnson, Reverend Sir Gilbert Williams, and George Carpenter Esquire—directed the High Sheriff to summon a jury.

Execution and gibbeting of Thomas Colley

On the day before his execution, 23 August, Colley received the sacrament and signed a formal statement affirming his belief in witchcraft. He then began a thirty-mile journey from Hertford to the execution site, escorted by a slow-moving procession of 108 guards, seven officers, and two trumpeters. The route roughly followed what are now the A414 and A41 roads. During the trip, Colley spent the night at a jail in St Albans.

At five o'clock the next morning, he was placed in a chaise pulled by a single horse, seated next to his executioner. They traveled through Hemel Hempstead. According to Brian P. Block, the large number of troops and the chosen route were meant as a deliberate warning from the authorities to discourage locals from killing suspected witches. The procession reached Tring, where Colley was permitted to speak with his wife and daughter.

While there, one of the escorting soldiers reportedly fired his pistol by accident. As they passed Butterfield's pub, Colley blamed the landlord for stirring up the crowd. They arrived at Gubblecote Cross, a crossroads near where the murder occurred, at eleven o'clock on Friday, 24 August 1751. About 5,000 people gathered to watch the execution.

The Gentleman's Magazine noted that most country folk were so deluded they refused to watch him die, possibly because they felt guilty for being present at the murder themselves, yet many thousands stood at a distance, grumbling and muttering as he passed. Colley's supposed last words, likely not written by him, were read aloud by a minister. He was then hanged. Afterward, his body was placed in a gibbet at the same location, though local residents had successfully petitioned to keep the gibbet away from the murder scene itself.

The iron cage for the gibbet cost exactly five pounds, and the total expense of the execution came to twenty-six pounds, seven shillings, and five pence.