Spirits of an Industrial Age

By Jacob Middleton

Spirits of an Industrial Age tells the story of the ghosts that roamed the cities of Britain throughout the nineteenth century. These were not phantoms in a traditional supernatural sense, but apparently flesh-and-blood ghosts, which periodically took to the streets, harassing those out alone after nightfall. They were rumoured to possess strange abilities, with press reports claiming that these spirits could leap remarkable distances, breathe fire, and even withstand bullets. Stories of these strange apparitions circulated through the newspapers, and left many citizens afraid to leave their homes on dark winter nights, for fear of what they might encounter. Covering the period between 1800 and 1900, this book examines the notable ghosts reputedly active in Britain at the time. These include the Hammersmith Ghost, the Swine-faced Ghost of Hampshire and, most infamous and feared of all, Spring-heeled Jack. Spirits of an Industrial Age explores the social and cultural context of these ghosts, looking at ghost impersonators, supernatural belief, and popular perceptions of the Victorian city. This wide-ranging work reveals the ghost beliefs of the nineteenth century, and explains why wandering spirits held such a grip on the popular imagination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jacob Middleton
• Release date: Oct 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310994197

Jacob Middleton

Jacob Middleton is a historian and writer who specializes in the Victorian period, the history of education, and nineteenth­-century popular culture. He holds an MA and PhD in History from Birkbeck, University of London, and has written extensively for the Fortean Times, Times Education Supplement, and History Today, in addition to his academic journal articles. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Book preview

Spirits of an

Industrial Age

Ghost Impersonation,

Spring-heeled Jack, and Victorian Society

By Jacob Middleton

Distributed by Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Jacob Middleton

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Preface

It was an evening in the early autumn of 1885 when Frank Grey met a ghost in a quiet corner of the English town of Derby. Grey was out promenading with a female companion, Isabella Scanlan, in Darley Grove, a leafy lane which ran alongside the river Derwent, towards the ruins of Darley Abbey. Twilight was fast approaching, and the shadows were gathering in the tree-lined avenue, when Grey and Scanlan came across what was later described as a ‘gaunt and grisly figure all in white apparel’.1 The presence of this apparition in Darley Grove was not entirely a surprise; for some weeks previously gossip had been circulating around Derby that the town’s streets were home to a menacing apparition. This eerie figure had the habit of lurking in various deserted spots around nightfall, surprising unwary travellers with its presence. Grey and Scanlan had come into the presence of what was popularly known as the Derby Ghost.

Whilst many people might have been intimidated by this figure, Grey was a member of the Derby Volunteer Corps and was, besides, ‘bold by nature and practical by education’.2 He asked the ghost its business in the grove and, when he received no reply, belaboured it around the head with his fists.3 The ghost’s reaction to this attack was surprising, in that it drew a loaded pistol from beneath its robes. Not to be deterred even by a firearm, Grey continued his assault, and the ghost soon took to its heels, leaving its gun behind.4

In the aftermath of the events in Darley Grove the tale of the ‘ghost with the revolver’ became a brief media sensation, as journalists amused their readers with their droll commentary on the events in Derby. ‘If this represents the average conduct of the dwellers in the World of Shadows’, noted one magazine, ‘the Psychical Society must be careful how it carries out its enquiries.’5 The general feeling, it seems, was that this was a particular unconvincing ghost, appearing in an era in which people were often sceptical of supposedly supernatural manifestations; as one journalist observed, when commenting on the events in Derby, the Victorian era was ‘a cynical and materialistic age’, one in which ‘the spectral profession [was] at a very low ebb’.6 The police were quick in tracking down the ghost impersonator from Darley Grove; this turned out to be a youth called Christopher Burrows, who was quickly brought before local magistrates.7

The Derby Ghost affair was relatively transient, and the attention of the press soon moved on to other matters. It was not, however, an isolated event, and throughout the nineteenth century, Great Britain was afflicted by scores of similar incidents, with apparitions reputedly stalking the streets of towns and cities, scaring lone pedestrians after nightfall. Whilst largely forgotten today, these events played an important role in British cultural life, and the prowling ghost was a widely recognised phenomenon.

The purpose of this book is to investigate these prowling ghosts, in all their forms. The phrase encompasses a wide range of subjects, from obviously fake entities, such as the Derby Ghost, to far more strange and elusive apparitions. Whilst these spirits exhibited a diverse range of appearances and behaviours, there are a number of common factors which suggest that they should be grouped within a single category. Firstly, they were not passive entities, but travelled around, apparently seeking out victims to scare. This is distinct from the prevalent image of the ghost bound to a particular haunted location. Secondly, these ghosts were popularly believed to be people in disguise, though few were caught in the act. This led to considerable speculation at the time as to the motives which would lead one to take on the guise of a ghost, with contemporary accounts often blaming outbreaks of wandering spirits on young men out larking, or on the wagers of bored aristocrats. Finally, many of these ghosts apparently possessed unnatural traits, such as the ability to make great bounding leaps, to withstand bullets, or to breathe fire. Whilst these attributes were often explained away as the product of technological trickery, they emphasised the unusual nature of these apparitions.

The activities of these prowling ghosts were sufficiently common that the phenomenon was a regular subject of discussion in the newspapers of the day. Journalists and commentators had a tendency to refer to these apparitions as modern ghosts, and portrayed them as weak imitators of their more impressive predecessors. As one writer observed in 1880:

Ghosts nowadays never seem to appear for a moral purpose as they have done in several well-known instances of old. They never come to tell of a treasure, or if they do, the finders are singularly reticent on the point. They never are disquieted on account of inadequate lodging at present, and troubled until they reveal to some terrified confidant where their bones lie, and the need they feel of more decent sepulchre.8

If the spirits of former years were seen as serving a decent moral purpose, then the modern ghosts were imagined as nothing more than debased imposters. They no longer inspired awe in the population, according to the press, and had become figures of curiosity, rather than objects of fear. ‘In the days of yore, when superstition was supreme,’ noted one journalist, ‘the nocturnal disturbers, who stalked about with solemn stride, were supposed to be supernatural, and affrighted all whom they approached; but in these modern times, when Materialism finds so much favour, ghosts are at a discount.’9 The status of apparitions was, thus, much diminished, though they continued to be sighted throughout the land; during the nineteenth century almost every town in Britain was afflicted, at some point, by its own troublesome spirit, and wandering ghosts were seen everywhere, from the winding streets of Dundee, to the picturesque villages of the Channel Islands.10

Although the nocturnal activity of these modern apparitions was a regular topic of discussion in nineteenth century Britain, the subject has received little attention from historians. This is surprising, given their prominence in Victorian popular culture. The prowling ghosts lent their names to racehorses, and board games; they were the subjects of stories and plays, and cropped up in literary allusions which would have been readily understood by contemporary readers; they became the subjects of fancy-dress costumes and appeared in Punch-and-Judy shows.11 In all, millions of words were devoted to these apparitions in reading matter published during the nineteenth century; as a cultural fixture of the Victorian era they are comparable to the Great Exhibition or Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Despite this, the prowling ghost has been largely forgotten, appearing as nothing more than the occasional footnote in the cultural and social histories of the age.12

One of the underlying reasons behind the marginalisation of the prowling ghost is that, unlike the monarchy, or the great Victorian expressions of nationhood, ghosts are difficult to fit into standard historical narratives. They defy easy explanation and categorisation. The problem is perhaps best described by the historian Robert Darnton, when he wondered:

How can history accommodate the aberrational—not the irrational or the accidental, which often figure in historical studies, but the odd elements that refuse to be assimilated into coherent pictures of the past? Aberrations do not fit into available schemes of things—story lines that lead through familiar channels to anticipated outcomes such as election victories, wars, depressions, the fall of empires, or the rise of the bourgeoisie. They bring us up short and make us rethink things.13

Ghosts are a prime example of the aberrational. Lacking a provable, physical, existence, they nevertheless pervade our culture, and are hard to ignore entirely. Yet despite this, writing about any type of ghost creates a series of problems for historians. After all, what definitive statement can be made about such entities? The most obvious response of those historians who have dealt with traditional apparitions is to avoid making judgements about the events which they report on, commenting only on patterns of belief and motifs of storytelling; an exploration of ghost stories thus becomes a means of examining certain aspects of the societies in which they appear. The value of this as an academic exercise can be seen in Owen Davies’ exploration of ghost imitation in his social history of spirits, The Haunted. In this, Davies shows how tales of ghost impersonation encompassed anti-Catholic propaganda, the activities of mischievous servants, and rumours spread by criminals.14 The various threads running through these stories thus connect them to contemporary issues, such as religious tensions, class conflict, and the fear of crime. Tales of apparitions become, thus, a reflection of the society in which they circulate.

Whilst this is a constructive approach to the interpretation of historical ghosts, it also presents clear problems in relation to the manner in which evidence is interpreted. In recent years there has been some recognition that readings of such accounts have often been overly literal.15 As a historical problem this is far more complicated than it may at first appear, given the preconceptions and assumptions which often affect historical accounts of the abnormal. For instance, it is common to see the term hoax used for instances of where people have been identified as ghosts.16 Underlying this usage, however, are assumptions about the nature of apparitions, and how they are sighted, not least the implicit suggestion that the real ghost is a supernatural of paranormal manifestation. Ghostliness can, after all, be an attribute externally imposed by observers or third-party interpretations. A newspaper account of a ghost seen wandering the streets of a city may be a journalistic dramatisation of events which owes little to the sightings which underlie the report. Moreover, the notion of a hoax may be inappropriate even in those instances where a person consciously chooses to dress as a phantom. As David Clarke points out in his study of a particular ghost panic which afflicted Sheffield, disguising oneself as a ghost can be explained as a form of ostension, the acting out of a prevalent legend.17 Whilst the ultimate effect can be much the same, the motivations behind this type of behaviour are notably different from a hoax. As we shall see in later chapters, dressing as a ghost could be a celebration of popular strands of prevalent folklore, a game in which both participants and observers knowingly played a role. To describe such activities as hoaxes distracts us from their relationship to the working-class communities in which they often occurred.

The issues around the notion of hoaxes should act as a reminder that interpretations of accounts of ghostly activity must be undertaken with care, since meaning can easily be obscured or concealed by the manner in which ghost stories are told and retold. Given that even ostensibly factual tales of this kind are often used as mere entertainment, errors and exaggerations can often appear in these accounts. Whilst it is easy to see how the manner in which ghost stories are told and retold can distort their meaning, other interpretative issues can be less obvious. What are we to make, for instance, of Spring-heeled Jack, a ghostly figure who was first active in 1837, and who was variously sighted in the form of a white bull or bear, as a baboon with eyes the size of saucers, or as a man in polished steel armour.18 He was popularly averred to be capable of prodigious leaps, and in some tales Spring-heeled Jack was described as either bullet-proof, or capable of breathing great gouts of blue flame.19 If we return to the observations of Robert Darnton we can see that this is an apparition which is not just aberrational in general historical terms, but an aberration even within the context of the ghost story.

Whilst Spring-heeled Jack will appear extensively in the following chapters, this is not a book about his activities. Although he achieved notable fame in the Victorian era, he was merely one of a number of apparitions which roamed the streets of British cities in the nineteenth century. This work explores this prowling ghost phenomenon as a whole, and looks at its relationship to the society of Britain during this period. It is not intended as an exhaustive exploration of ghost belief in the nineteenth century, and does not deal with certain strands of supernatural and paranormal thought which, whilst important, do not relate directly to the prowling apparitions sighted on the streets of Britain.20 Thus, the reader will find little reference in these pages to spiritualism, the nineteenth-century attempt to reconcile religion and ghosts into a quasi-scientific belief system.21 Although the spiritualists frequently interacted with what they believed were visions of the dead, the context is quite distinct from that of the roaming spirits encountered by unwitting travellers. Similarly, this book does not deal with ghost stories in a fictional sense, but instead focuses on encounters with apparitions which were at least notionally real. Though the demarcation between real and fictional is often indistinct when dealing with stories of ghosts, a rough boundary may still be drawn between tales invented for popular entertainment, and ostensibly true accounts of apparitions. Finally, it should be noted that this is a book which concentrates on what was specifically a working-class experience, albeit largely mediated through the eyes of middle-class commentators. The manner in which ghosts were imagined in middle-class discourse has been explored thoroughly by other historians in recent years, most notably with Sasha Handley’s Visions of an Unseen World and Shane McCorristine’s Spectres of the Self; this book is intended as a counterpoint, exploring a very different type of ghost experience.22

The focus of the following chapters is on apparitions encountered in Great Britain. Whilst similar wandering spirits have, on occasion, been reported elsewhere in the world, it appears that that the prowling ghost is a particularly British phenomenon. Even within Britain, some areas were more afflicted than others by this form of ghostly activity. Thus, North Wales was more heavily affected by the phenomenon than the south; the focal point of ghost sightings in Scotland was the east coast between Dundee and Edinburgh; and in England the districts most troubled by wandering apparitions were Hampshire, London, and the region surrounding Manchester and Liverpool. It is clear that there were some parts of Britain in which pre-existing beliefs were amenable to the emergence of prowling ghosts. The phenomenon of the prowling ghost is, moreover, not just bound by geography, but by time. Ghost beliefs are heavily influenced by social context, and the notions which define phantasmal figures change with shifts in society. The apparition is as much a product of a given period as any aspect of material culture.

It is useful, here, to look at popular ghost beliefs in early modern Britain. These held that ghosts were common and widespread, and might be encountered in many different contexts. However, as Keith Thomas has pointed out, belief in the supernatural during this period was heavily rooted in instrumental values; individuals believed in ghosts, witches, and omens because they served a social function.23 Their appearance was used to resolve family disputes, ensure justice, and to explain what would otherwise remain unexplained. Thomas has argued that there was a decline in the belief in the supernatural from the seventeenth century onwards as these functions were increasingly fulfilled by society and the state.24 This is, of course, a broad overview in the shifts in attitudes towards the supernatural and, moreover, one which has been criticised in recent years. The main objection to this thesis is that it is a teleological construct, and the decline in supernatural belief during the period in question has been heavily overstated.25 Nevertheless, whilst the narrative presented by Thomas may be overly simplistic, the general underlying theory retains considerable value. Ghost encounters are of their time; the Cock Lane Ghost could not have been active in the nineteenth century, just as spiritualism would have been out of place in the eighteenth. Beliefs are constantly changing, shaped by physical, social, and cultural environments.

Part of the difficultly with tracing the trends within popular belief is that contemporary accounts were written for specific purposes, and much of the writing about the supernatural dating from the Victorian period sought to put it in the context of social and economic progress, and suggested that education and rising levels of literacy were driving superstition from Britain. By the latter part of the nineteenth century it was frequently claimed, in the words of one author, that ghosts were nothing more than ‘fancies of a bygone age, as the creations of excited and overheated imaginations’.26 As an editorial in The Daily Gazette would note in 1879:

In the days of yore, when superstition was supreme, the nocturnal disturbers, who stalked about with solemn stride, were supposed to be supernatural, and affrighted all whom they approached; but in these modern times, when Materialism finds so much favour, ghosts are at a discount. Sometimes one puts in an appearance in a country place and succeeds in terrifying silly women and children; but he has to be very careful in his movements, because every human being does not now recede from him in awe...27

The claims made in such statements are not without merit, and are, to some degree, a reflection of contemporary society. Yet scepticism should not be seen as part of a linear programme of social progress, or as part of a long process of decline in superstition, but, instead, as an aspect of the complex relationship between society and what was imagined to be the supernatural. Education may have refined the image of the ghost, and affected responses to the supernatural, but it did little to prevent people from witnessing apparitions. The problem of the prowling ghost exists largely because ghost sightings remained common even at the end of the nineteenth century. The disparity between what people saw, and what they wanted to believe was a problem which could not easily be resolved.

Chapter One

A Shot in the Dark

In the autumn of 1803 rumours began to circulate that the otherwise unremarkable hamlet of Hammersmith, just outside London, was haunted by a ghost. This apparition seemed to change form with every appearance. Whilst some witnesses claimed that they had seen a tall figure in a white sheet, others said they had been confronted by a headless horse.1 Yet stranger stories surfaced, in which it was described as appearing dressed in a calf-skin, with horns upon its head, or even in the form of Napoleon Bonaparte, a chilling omen at a time when Britain was at war with the seemingly unbeatable French dictator.2 One contemporary report went so far as to admit that:

The various reports about Hammersmith would more than fill a newspaper; some absolutely affirming, that they had seen the eyes of the ghost appear like a glow worm; others, that he breathed fire and smoke; and others again, that he vanished in a moment, and sunk in the earth in their presence!3

The ghost was unusual in other ways. Rather than passively manifesting before onlookers, it was described in stories as prowling the streets, ready to confront those out alone at night, creating ‘so much alarm, that every superstitious person in that neighbourhood has been filled with the most fearful apprehensions’.4 In particular, the apparition seemed to seek out lone women. In its report of the ghost’s activities in The Ipswich Journal it was observed that:

Not a young miss or an old maid could stir at night, the one for an innocent game of whist, the other to see a lover, without being crossed by this most obstructive and frightful apparition.5

If the press reports hinted that the Hammersmith Ghost was really a man, he was one who would prove difficult to catch; the one point on which all were agreed was that the ghost was extremely evasive. ‘Many attempts were made to seize it’, claimed The Ipswich Journal, ‘but it had one property of a ghost, it eluded the quickest pursuit, and there was not a pair of heels in the parish swift enough to overtake it.’6

I

In 1803 there could be few better places for a mysterious phantom to haunt than the winding, tree-lined lanes of Hammersmith. Although it was a growing and prosperous community, at the beginning of the nineteenth century it lacked a parish church, or even a clear urban centre, despite being larger and more populous than many of the surrounding villages. To a great extent this was the product of Hammersmith’s location upon the Great West Road. In the opening years of the nineteenth century this was an important and busy route, linking London with the western counties of England. The constant stream of travellers passing along the road had encouraged enterprising businessmen to open a number of inns in Hammersmith which, with clusters of houses and cottages, had created a lively and bustling community.

Hammersmith was also close to the Thames, which turned towards the neighbourhood after curving around Chelsea and Fulham. Here, a thousand years before, the Danes had camped over winter, during one of their raiding campaigns against the British; their presence was blamed for the human bones which were regularly unearthed by the market gardeners who made their living in the area.7 At the beginning of the nineteenth century these bones were increasingly being exposed by those builders engaged in constructing fine houses for the wealthy families drawn to Hammersmith by its picturesque river views and close proximity to London. Here, a mere four miles from Hyde Park Corner, they could set up households away from the crime, filth and squalor of the capital. By 1803 much of Hammersmith’s river frontage was occupied by two handsome streets of modern residences, known as the Upper and Lower Malls. They were separated by a group of old and somewhat dilapidated houses clustered around a channel of water known locally as Hammersmith Creek.8 This contrast between new and old was typical of an area which was slowly evolving into a suburb of London. Whilst the buildings on the Lower Mall might have rivalled those gracing the finest streets of London itself, Hammersmith remained predominately rural; the space between the luxurious new houses on the Thames, and the older dwellings clustered around Hammersmith’s high street was covered, for the most part, by agricultural land. Beyond the modern Georgian terraces were fields and market gardens, crossed by narrow lanes bounded by hedges and trees.

Although the neighbourhood may have appeared peaceful, the presence of the Great West Road drew highwaymen and other criminals who preyed upon wealthy travellers. Robbery at gunpoint was one of the many hazards when passing through the area after nightfall.9 Hammersmith also drew other kinds of criminals. For many years it was rumoured that the dilapidated Blythe House, by Brook Green, was haunted; ‘strange stories were related of ghosts and apparitions having been seen here’.10 It transpired that such tales were due to ‘a gang of smugglers [who] had taken up their residence in the building, supposing that this sequestered place would be favourable to their illegal pursuits’.11 Yet, despite the problems of crime and growing urbanisation, Hammersmith still retained, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the image of a country village. The surrounding area, particularly on the northern and western fringes of the village, was dominated by market gardens and farmers’ fields, interspersed with trees and hedges. It was an ideal place to be haunted by a ghost, pretend or otherwise. It was populous, yet not so much so that the people of Hammersmith, when wandering through the hamlet, could find themselves alone in a shady and deserted lane.

II

All ghosts must have an origin, and the Hammersmith Ghost was no exception. At the time of its appearance rumours circulated in the community that the ghost was ‘the apparition of a man who cut his throat in the neighbourhood above a year ago’.12 Although this individual went unnamed in newspaper accounts, the rumours referred to Thomas Flynn, whose spectacular and bloody death in 1800 was one of the more memorable events in Hammersmith’s recent past. Flynn was an Irish immigrant, an apparently respectable clerk working for a draper in Bishopsgate, then a suburb on the eastern edge of London. He had married a Hammersmith girl in June 1799, who went to live with him for a while, though the union did not prove to be successful. Flynn’s mother-in-law would later say that ‘not more than six weeks had elapsed before her daughter complained of his ill usage, and the brutality of his conduct towards her’.13 Mrs Flynn fled back to her parents for a time, before she was persuaded to return to her husband. The reconciliation did not last and, in July 1800, Flynn’s wife appeared before the magistrates to swear the peace against him.14 This was a process in which a claim was made in court that a particular person feared death or bodily harm from another, who was then bound over to keep the peace. It seems that Flynn