Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
09 November 2011
Britain’s Last Witch: Helen Duncan
She was a fraud and swindler and in 1944 she
was jailed in Britain after being convicted
under the country’s ancient Witchcraft Act
Helen Duncan was born in Scotland in 1897 and is reported by BBC History to have
shown signs at an early age of being able to contact the spirit world.
“A prominent feature of her sittings,” says the British news organization, “was her
ability to emit ‘ectoplasm’ from her mouth during her trances -
Sceptics say it’s cheesecloth or some other fabric that is cleverly produced as a conjurer might pull a rabbit out of a top hat.
Séances Held for Bereaved
Duncan married a cabinet maker who had been injured in World War I. Her family’s genealogical website notes that, “She had 12 pregnancies, but only six children survived. To sustain this large family and a disabled husband she worked in the local bleach factory by day and [did] her spiritual work and domestic duties by night.”
In the 1920s there was a high demand for her séances; Britain had just come through the battlefield carnage of World War I and there were many people anxious to know how a loved one might be doing on the other side.
For a small fee, Helen Duncan was happy to provide assurances.
Helen Duncan’s Reputation Spread
According to the family, during her séances Duncan was said to be able to make images
of dead people appear 
through ectoplasm (left) “in physical form” and speak to and
touch “their earthly relatives.”
News of her psychic gifts spread and soon Helen Duncan was travelling the length and breadth of Britain charging customers for demonstrations of her skills.
BBC History reports that, “Duncan was accepted as a minister to a sizeable network of spiritualist churches and private homes.”
Harry Price was an eminent psychic investigator who did not find Duncan’s abilities convincing.
However, on a website devoted to Price’s work, his skepticism does not seem to have deterred Duncan’s followers: “She holds what amounts to an emotive position in contemporary spiritualism…nearly fifty years after her death.”
Medium Runs Afoul of the Law
Duncan got into trouble in the early 1930s. The Morning Post newspaper called her a hoaxer and Harry Price’s National Laboratory of Psychical Research, having examined her spirituality under controlled conditions, pronounced her a fraud.
Writing in The London Review of Books, an article reprinted in The Guardian, Hilary Mantel relates that in 1933 at an Edinburgh séance ectoplasm appeared in the form of a person Duncan called “Peggy.”
The medium “was surprised by a sitter who made a grab at her, turned on the lights, and found her rapidly concealing ‘Peggy’ under her clothes. ‘I’ll brain you, you bloody bugger,’ Helen shouted; she was prosecuted for fraud and fined ten pounds.”
However, despite these setbacks, her business continued to prosper.
The Sinking of HMS Barham
World War II provided Duncan with a whole new generation of grieving relatives. To be near her clients she moved to Portsmouth, one of the Royal Navy’s premier bases.
The BBC recounts how “In 1941, the spirit of a sailor reportedly appeared at one of her séances announcing that he had just gone down on a vessel called the Barham.”
The battleship HMS Barham had indeed been sunk by torpedoes in the Mediterranean in 1941 with a loss of more than 850 lives. The event was caught on camera (above) when the vessel’s ammunition store blew up.
However, the tragedy had been kept secret by the British government, which now grew concerned that a medium seemed to know about it. Was she a spy?
Intelligence staff began to keep a watch on Helen Duncan with the aim of building a case against her. Better to have her locked away than spreading stories that might damage wartime morale.
The Trial of Helen Duncan
It was not until 1944 that the authorities pounced in the form of a police raid on one of séances.
She was hauled into court and charged under the Vagrancy Act, which was the normal means of dealing with mediums; a charge that would produce a small fine and a stiff talking to from a magistrate.
But, higher authority took an interest and Duncan was taken to London to face trial in the Old Bailey.
New charges were placed under the Witchcraft Act of 1735 in which there was a section
covering fraudulent “spiritual” activity. After an eight-
On her release, she promised not to hold any more séances but happily continued doing so until her death in 1956.
Image credit
Marta Tycinska
Sources
“Scotland’s Last Witch.” BBC History.
“Unhappy Medium.” Hilary Mantel, The Guardian, May 3, 2001.
“Fraudulent Medium or Powerful Psychic: the Trial of a Scottish Witch.” The Scotsman, October 20, 2005.
“Campaign to Pardon the Last Witch, Jailed as a Threat to Britain at War.” Severin Carrell, The Guardian, January 13, 2007.
© Canada and the World, November 2011
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SEEKING A PARDON
In January 2007, the Guardian (U.K.) wrote that, “Some 50 years after Mrs. Duncan's death, a fresh campaign has been launched to clear her name, with a petition...” seeking to grant her a pardon.
The petition was started by the holder of a medieval barony, Gordon Prestoungrange, in a Scottish town not far from where Mrs. Duncan lived.
The Guardian reported that “Two years ago, Dr. Prestoungrange used his ancient powers as the local baron to pardon 81 women and men from the area executed for witchcraft in the 16th and 17th centuries.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes was a believer in spiritualism.
The Scotsman newspaper says one of its own reporters attended a séance held by Mrs. Duncan and saw an apparition of Doyle:
“James Herries, an investigator of psychic phenomena for 20 years and a personal
friend of the Edinburgh-