On 10th April 1860 Joseph Rushton and his younger brother George, aged 15 and 12 respectively, were returning from Castle Bromwich station with a handcart full of coal. Their large family lived in a small cottage at Bucklands End and every one of them had a household job to help out. Wheelwright George Rushton and his wife Ann had eleven children and, although the oldest had now left home, there were still six to care for, three of them younger than George.

The boys had spent all day planting potatoes for a local farmer and then, about 5 o’clock, they had to walk the 1½ miles to the station and back to get coal for the fire at the cottage. It had been a long day. Ahead of them was the steep Mill Hill up past Castle Bromwich church and the lads were tired and hungry.

They passed over the bridge by Twamley’s Mill. (This stood upstream of the Chester Road bridge over the River Tame on a site now underneath the M6 motorway viaduct.) Looking over the stone parapet of the bridge, the boys noticed a floury bread-like substance on the projecting ledge a metre below them. Joseph, being the tallest, scrambled over and passed the substance to his brother and the two boys satisfied their hunger. They then made their way up the hill to Castle Bromwich.

The Boys Become Ill

By the time Joseph and George had reached the church they had started to vomit and continued to do so. They were getting weaker by the minute and could barely walk. It was nearly 8 o’clock in the evening and getting dark when Thomas Spursbury was making his way home after bird nesting with Alfred, one of the younger brothers of the Rushton boys.

Joseph and George were now so weak that they had to be supported the rest of the way home. By the time they got to the cottage they were unable to speak.

Their worried parents assumed it was something their sons had eaten that had caused their illness and made them drink a little brandy and gave them some home-made remedies. But the boys grew worse and drifted in and out of consciousness, still vomiting and suffering convulsions.

At midnight George died, screaming and in great pain.

A Doctor Is Summoned

Poor families did not call a doctor unless they really had to. But now George Senior had no choice. He set off to walk the six miles to Coleshill in the dark to find Mr Bailey, the surgeon, in the hope of saving Joseph.

But long before the doctor arrived, Joseph too had died. Mr Bailey ordered that the boys’ vomit be kept for forensic examination and, having officially confirmed the deaths of the two boys, he left the family to their grief.

The next morning, father George went out with neighbours to retrace the route the lads would have take from Castle Bromwich station. They found traces of a bread-like substance which was sent to the surgeon at Coleshill as evidence for the inquest.

An Inquest Is Convened

The inquest was convened four days later at The Castle Inn with the Warwickshire coroner in the chair; respected local schoolmaster John Blewitt was the foreman of the jury. Having been sworn in, the jurors went over to Bucklands End to view the bodies of the boys.

When the jury returned to the Castle, George Rushton sorrowfully described the events of that tragic night. Coroner Carter then adjourned the inquest for a week to allow time for the contents of the boys’ stomachs to be examined along with the substance that George and his neighbours had found.

Local People Suspect Poisoning

Although not given in evidence, local people at the inquest informally talked about the case. It was assumed the two lads had inadvertently taken poison. It was known that a rat catcher had been working around Castle Bromwich and that he had left by train on the day of their deaths. It may have been rat poison that had killed Joseph and George Rushton.

The following Saturday the jurors reconvened at The Castle Inn and Mr Carter resumed the inquest. A local coachman, James Wall gave evidence. On the morning in question he had walked along the Chester Road down to Castle Bromwich station with William Stanley, whom he knew. Stanley was catching the train to Dudley.

As the two crossed the bridge over the River Tame, James Wall saw Stanley empty a bag over the parapet of the bridge into the water. He had not discussed it with Stanley and had thought nothing of it. The inquest was adjourned yet again until the rat catcher William Stanley could be summoned.

The Rat Catcher Gives Evidence

Finally, on Monday 30th April the matter was resolved. William Stanley gave evidence to the jury. He was a farmer near Stafford but also travelled around destroying vermin. On 10th April he had been in Castle Bromwich laying poison to kill rats. The substances he used were arsenic and barium carbonate mixed with flour and bran.

When he had finished his work laying poison, he had inspected the rat holes and collected any surplus poison in a bag for safety’s sake. He did not want to carry this on the train and so had disposed of it safely, so he thought, by throwing it over the bridge to be washed away by the river. Little did he know there was a ledge projecting out about a foot on the other side of the parapet.

John Henry Trollope Bailey, the surgeon of Coleshill, then testified that arsenic had indeed been found in the contents of the boys’ stomachs and that the horrible manner of their deaths was commensurate with arsenic poisoning.

The Jury’s Verdict

The jury’s unanimous verdict was ‘Accidental Death’, but they recommended that William Stanley use extreme caution in the future to prevent a similar occurrence happening again.

Stanley was so deeply upset by the affair that he was unable to speak and the Coroner desisted from making further comment. Although he himself was the father of a large family, Stanley gave a gold sovereign to George Rushton and the jury were also generous in their contributions.

Joseph and George Rushton were buried in Castle Bromwich graveyard where they lie in an unmarked grave. Their father was to die only four years later at the age of 58.

Interestingly, at the time of the 1891 census Joseph and George’s younger brother Alfred Rushton was living in Bucklands End with his wife and four sons, very likely in the same cottage. He named his eldest son after himself, and his second son was called George.

Acknowledgements: This article has been developed from research by Terrie Knibb and the Castle Bromwich Youth & Community Partnership. For more information about the Castle Bromwich Graveyard Project go to http://castlebromwichgraveyard.co.uk/