1
00:00:01,280 --> 00:00:04,320
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

2
00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:13,800
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

3
00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:17,560
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly try. Today we

4
00:00:17,560 --> 00:00:21,320
Speaker 1: are going to talk about Helen Duncan, who is sometimes

5
00:00:21,360 --> 00:00:26,479
Speaker 1: described as Scotland's last witch or as the last person

6
00:00:26,800 --> 00:00:30,800
Speaker 1: imprisoned for witchcraft in Britain. Sometimes people are like a

7
00:00:30,840 --> 00:00:33,600
Speaker 1: little more precise than that and call her the last

8
00:00:33,760 --> 00:00:37,560
Speaker 1: person to be tried under the UK's seventeen thirty five

9
00:00:37,680 --> 00:00:42,480
Speaker 1: Witchcraft Act. None of that is quite correct, though all

10
00:00:42,560 --> 00:00:45,840
Speaker 1: of them are wrong in slightly different ways. We, of course,

11
00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:49,080
Speaker 1: we'll be talking about that. One of the many wild

12
00:00:49,159 --> 00:00:53,160
Speaker 1: things about the story, though, is that it really did

13
00:00:53,320 --> 00:00:58,120
Speaker 1: involve the Witchcraft Act of seventeen thirty five, but it

14
00:00:58,240 --> 00:01:03,600
Speaker 1: happened in nineteen forty four. Who didn't love a little

15
00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:09,560
Speaker 1: archaic law being applied to modern times. So. Helen Duncan

16
00:01:09,680 --> 00:01:16,400
Speaker 1: was born Victoria Helen McFarlane on November in Colander, Scotland,

17
00:01:16,480 --> 00:01:19,480
Speaker 1: which is roughly thirty five miles that's about fifty six

18
00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:23,080
Speaker 1: kilometers north of Glasgow. She was the fourth of eight

19
00:01:23,160 --> 00:01:27,680
Speaker 1: children born to Archibald McFarlane and Isabelle retree Archibald worked

20
00:01:27,680 --> 00:01:30,560
Speaker 1: as a slater, that is, a person who slates roofs.

21
00:01:31,720 --> 00:01:34,800
Speaker 1: Helen had a flair for the supernatural and the dramatic

22
00:01:34,840 --> 00:01:38,360
Speaker 1: from a very early age. She would make these portentous

23
00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:42,760
Speaker 1: statements about other people's impending doom. She said that she

24
00:01:42,800 --> 00:01:47,320
Speaker 1: could see and talk to spirits. She was also headstrong,

25
00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:51,720
Speaker 1: people didn't think of her as particularly feminine. All of

26
00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:55,120
Speaker 1: this together earned her the nickname Hellish Nell while she

27
00:01:55,240 --> 00:01:59,600
Speaker 1: was still a child. Sources are very contradictory about whether

28
00:01:59,640 --> 00:02:03,040
Speaker 1: this was sort of a lightly teasing and affectionate nickname,

29
00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:06,040
Speaker 1: or if it was a real condemnation of her behavior.

30
00:02:07,080 --> 00:02:09,920
Speaker 1: In some accounts, there were mediums on both sides of

31
00:02:09,919 --> 00:02:13,320
Speaker 1: the family, and Helen's parents didn't try to discourage her

32
00:02:13,480 --> 00:02:17,079
Speaker 1: as long as she wasn't making predictions or talking about

33
00:02:17,120 --> 00:02:21,760
Speaker 1: spirits around people who might disapprove. But in other accounts,

34
00:02:22,040 --> 00:02:26,160
Speaker 1: this behavior went against the family's religious beliefs, and Helen's

35
00:02:26,160 --> 00:02:28,160
Speaker 1: parents told her she was going to be burned at

36
00:02:28,160 --> 00:02:31,920
Speaker 1: the stake if she kept it up. Helen left school

37
00:02:32,040 --> 00:02:34,360
Speaker 1: when she was a teenager. She got a job serving

38
00:02:34,440 --> 00:02:38,200
Speaker 1: meals at a hotel. She got pregnant in nineteen fourteen

39
00:02:38,240 --> 00:02:40,839
Speaker 1: when she was about sixteen, and at that point her

40
00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:44,320
Speaker 1: parents did kick her out. Helen moved to the coastal

41
00:02:44,400 --> 00:02:47,000
Speaker 1: city of Dundee, where she gave birth to a daughter

42
00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:51,800
Speaker 1: named Isabella in nineteen fifteen. In Dundee, Helen worked at

43
00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:54,320
Speaker 1: a mill and as an auxiliary nurse at the Dundee

44
00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:57,520
Speaker 1: Royal Infirmary, and it was there that she met Henry

45
00:02:57,639 --> 00:03:00,760
Speaker 1: Edward Duncan. He was the they're of one of her

46
00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:03,320
Speaker 1: co workers, and he had been discharged from the army

47
00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:08,040
Speaker 1: after developing rheumatic fever. Helen said the first time they

48
00:03:08,120 --> 00:03:11,600
Speaker 1: met it had been in her dreams. They got married

49
00:03:11,600 --> 00:03:16,800
Speaker 1: on May nineteen sixteen and moved to Edinburgh, including Isabella.

50
00:03:16,919 --> 00:03:20,840
Speaker 1: They had six children who survived to adulthood. Helen and

51
00:03:20,919 --> 00:03:24,520
Speaker 1: Henry were both chronically ill, and the family often really

52
00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:28,280
Speaker 1: struggled financially. Henry tried to start his own business as

53
00:03:28,280 --> 00:03:32,160
Speaker 1: a cabinet maker, which Helen helped him with. She also

54
00:03:32,240 --> 00:03:35,040
Speaker 1: took a job at a bleach factory to try to

55
00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:38,320
Speaker 1: help make ends meet, but then Henry had a heart attack,

56
00:03:38,440 --> 00:03:42,680
Speaker 1: which he survived, but afterward he wasn't able to work anymore.

57
00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:47,520
Speaker 1: They're already tight budget got even tighter, and Helen started

58
00:03:47,560 --> 00:03:50,840
Speaker 1: conducting seances in the evenings to try to earn a

59
00:03:50,880 --> 00:03:54,520
Speaker 1: little more money. Henry did what he could to encourage

60
00:03:54,560 --> 00:03:57,840
Speaker 1: her and to manage her career. When we've talked about

61
00:03:57,840 --> 00:04:00,920
Speaker 1: the spiritualist movement on the show before, we have usually

62
00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:03,920
Speaker 1: been talking about things that happened a little bit earlier

63
00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:07,880
Speaker 1: than this, in the nineteenth or very early twentieth century.

64
00:04:08,320 --> 00:04:12,280
Speaker 1: Previous episodes have covered nineteenth century figures like the Sisters

65
00:04:12,320 --> 00:04:16,000
Speaker 1: Fox and Madame Blovotsky, and spiritualism has come up in

66
00:04:16,040 --> 00:04:19,120
Speaker 1: episodes about other people who lived during the same time,

67
00:04:19,520 --> 00:04:24,839
Speaker 1: including Mother Rebecca Cox Jackson and Sojourner Truth. But spiritualism

68
00:04:24,880 --> 00:04:27,960
Speaker 1: didn't end with the Victorian era. It was still going

69
00:04:28,040 --> 00:04:30,960
Speaker 1: strong after the devastation of World War One in the

70
00:04:31,040 --> 00:04:34,400
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen flu pandemic as people tried to reconnect with

71
00:04:34,480 --> 00:04:38,080
Speaker 1: loved ones who had died. So when Duncan started offering

72
00:04:38,120 --> 00:04:40,919
Speaker 1: her services as a medium in the nineteen twenties, she

73
00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:46,360
Speaker 1: had plenty of potential customers. In six the Duncan family

74
00:04:46,440 --> 00:04:50,039
Speaker 1: moved from Edinburgh back to Dundee and Helen started to

75
00:04:50,160 --> 00:04:54,200
Speaker 1: really focus on her work as a medium. She specifically

76
00:04:54,240 --> 00:04:59,200
Speaker 1: became a materialization medium. That's somebody who's spirit channeling process

77
00:04:59,240 --> 00:05:05,880
Speaker 1: also included physical manifestations, in this case producing ectoplasm from

78
00:05:05,920 --> 00:05:10,479
Speaker 1: her body. If this ectoplasm also enabled a medium to

79
00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:14,600
Speaker 1: perform some kind of telekinesis, it was described as teleplasm,

80
00:05:14,680 --> 00:05:19,600
Speaker 1: and that comes up in accounts of Helen Also. Duncan

81
00:05:19,760 --> 00:05:23,080
Speaker 1: seances evolved over time, but they basically went like this.

82
00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:26,480
Speaker 1: One corner of the room would be separated off from

83
00:05:26,520 --> 00:05:29,000
Speaker 1: the rest of the space with hanging curtains, and this

84
00:05:29,120 --> 00:05:32,440
Speaker 1: served as the medium's cabinet. It could also be an

85
00:05:32,440 --> 00:05:35,719
Speaker 1: actual cabinet, or a closet or an alcove, just some

86
00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:39,240
Speaker 1: space that could be separated by a curtain. She would

87
00:05:39,279 --> 00:05:41,960
Speaker 1: pass around a set of clothing for the people attending

88
00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:45,799
Speaker 1: the seance or the sitters to inspect. If the sitters

89
00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:49,520
Speaker 1: were satisfied that the clothes were not concealing anything or

90
00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:52,479
Speaker 1: suspicious in some way, she would take some of the

91
00:05:52,480 --> 00:05:55,839
Speaker 1: women into another room where they could watch as she

92
00:05:56,040 --> 00:05:59,920
Speaker 1: changed into that set of clothes. These women could also

93
00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:03,200
Speaker 1: inspect Duncan's hair and body to make sure that she

94
00:06:03,360 --> 00:06:07,440
Speaker 1: wasn't hiding something. Once all of that was done, Duncan

95
00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:10,720
Speaker 1: would take a seat in the cabinet. After the curtains

96
00:06:10,760 --> 00:06:13,159
Speaker 1: were closed in front of her and the room was

97
00:06:13,560 --> 00:06:16,159
Speaker 1: lit with a dim red light, she would go into

98
00:06:16,160 --> 00:06:19,640
Speaker 1: a trance, and when the curtain opened again, spirit guides

99
00:06:19,680 --> 00:06:23,919
Speaker 1: would manifest hovering close to her. She had two primary guides,

100
00:06:23,960 --> 00:06:27,000
Speaker 1: they were Albert and Peggy, and they would carry messages

101
00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:30,200
Speaker 1: from the other side for various sitters in the room.

102
00:06:30,880 --> 00:06:34,160
Speaker 1: Other spirits also manifested from time to time as well,

103
00:06:34,640 --> 00:06:41,160
Speaker 1: and sometimes Duncan would manifest large amounts of white, whispy ectoplasm.

104
00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:45,359
Speaker 1: Although Duncan had devoted supporters from the very beginning, it

105
00:06:45,480 --> 00:06:47,680
Speaker 1: did not take long for people to point out that

106
00:06:47,720 --> 00:06:52,320
Speaker 1: these manifestations were fake. They could look quite convincing under

107
00:06:52,360 --> 00:06:56,440
Speaker 1: that dim red light, especially to spiritualists who already believed

108
00:06:56,440 --> 00:07:01,360
Speaker 1: in things like spirit manifestation. But in eight photographer Harvey

109
00:07:01,400 --> 00:07:05,200
Speaker 1: Metcalf took flash photos during a seance that Duncan conducted

110
00:07:05,240 --> 00:07:10,040
Speaker 1: in her home, apparently with her permission, and what he

111
00:07:10,120 --> 00:07:14,400
Speaker 1: captured looked almost laughably bad. Yeah, they did not hold

112
00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:17,320
Speaker 1: up under a camera flash like. In one of the photos,

113
00:07:17,440 --> 00:07:20,800
Speaker 1: Duncan is in a chair, blindfolded and she has a

114
00:07:20,880 --> 00:07:24,320
Speaker 1: length of what looks like rolled gauze leading from her

115
00:07:24,400 --> 00:07:28,480
Speaker 1: nose to a figure that's hovering over her shoulder. This

116
00:07:28,640 --> 00:07:32,840
Speaker 1: figure has very squared off shoulders like maybe it's really

117
00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:36,560
Speaker 1: fabric draped over a coat hanger, and its face looks

118
00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:38,840
Speaker 1: a lot like the head of a Punch and Judy

119
00:07:38,880 --> 00:07:43,360
Speaker 1: puppet made of paper mache. And another the figure is

120
00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:47,120
Speaker 1: similarly positioned with this gauzy rope leading out from under

121
00:07:47,200 --> 00:07:51,560
Speaker 1: Duncan's blindfold to drape around a boxy white form that

122
00:07:51,640 --> 00:07:56,360
Speaker 1: has a very dull like head. Duncan's critics also included

123
00:07:56,400 --> 00:08:00,800
Speaker 1: other spiritualists. The London spiritualist A Lion, carried out an

124
00:08:00,840 --> 00:08:04,760
Speaker 1: investigation this fan from October of nineteen thirty to June

125
00:08:04,760 --> 00:08:10,080
Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty one. Duncan participated in this investigation, traveling

126
00:08:10,120 --> 00:08:12,520
Speaker 1: to London and being paid a flat fee for the

127
00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:17,960
Speaker 1: roughly fifty seances that she conducted over those months. Investigators

128
00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:22,160
Speaker 1: examined everything about them, her clothes, the ectoplasm, the information

129
00:08:22,200 --> 00:08:25,120
Speaker 1: that she conveyed. They took X rays and at one

130
00:08:25,160 --> 00:08:28,559
Speaker 1: point had her swallow methylene blue to try to figure

131
00:08:28,600 --> 00:08:32,240
Speaker 1: out if she was swallowing and regurgitating the substance that

132
00:08:32,280 --> 00:08:36,400
Speaker 1: she said was ectoplasm. This did not work because she

133
00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:41,440
Speaker 1: didn't produce any ectoplasm after swallowing the die. After the

134
00:08:41,480 --> 00:08:45,800
Speaker 1: first few seances that Duncan conducted as part of this investigation,

135
00:08:46,360 --> 00:08:49,000
Speaker 1: the London Spiritualist Alliance seems to a thought that she

136
00:08:49,080 --> 00:08:53,720
Speaker 1: might actually be genuine, but the organization ultimately concluded that

137
00:08:53,880 --> 00:08:57,480
Speaker 1: she was a fraud. They did not find definitive proof

138
00:08:57,520 --> 00:09:01,000
Speaker 1: of where the ectoplasm came from, but they thought most

139
00:09:01,080 --> 00:09:03,920
Speaker 1: likely the scenario was that she was swallowing it before

140
00:09:03,960 --> 00:09:08,400
Speaker 1: the seance and then regurgitating it. Different pieces of ectoplasm

141
00:09:08,440 --> 00:09:11,560
Speaker 1: that they examined seemed to have been made from different recipes,

142
00:09:11,600 --> 00:09:16,440
Speaker 1: but they incorporated things like cheesecloth, egg white and toilet paper.

143
00:09:17,720 --> 00:09:21,320
Speaker 1: I read this prior to us recording, but somehow hearing

144
00:09:21,600 --> 00:09:26,240
Speaker 1: that set aloud makes me want to regurgitate things. It's

145
00:09:26,280 --> 00:09:28,600
Speaker 1: just like the thought of swallowing that and then bringing

146
00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:32,800
Speaker 1: it back up is gross. I'm not a fan, no uh.

147
00:09:32,920 --> 00:09:37,280
Speaker 1: Psychic researcher Harry Price conducted his own investigation through his

148
00:09:37,400 --> 00:09:42,200
Speaker 1: National Laboratory of Psychical Research in May nine one, paying

149
00:09:42,280 --> 00:09:46,320
Speaker 1: Duncan fifty pounds for a series of seances. He was

150
00:09:46,360 --> 00:09:49,000
Speaker 1: skeptical from the start, saying that he had heard of

151
00:09:49,080 --> 00:09:52,160
Speaker 1: Duncan through the spiritualist press, but quote, as I do

152
00:09:52,200 --> 00:09:54,240
Speaker 1: not believe one tenth of what I read in the

153
00:09:54,280 --> 00:09:59,920
Speaker 1: spiritualist press, I was not particularly thrilled. Price also concluded

154
00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:03,840
Speaker 1: that Duncan was a fraud, with her teleplasm being made

155
00:10:03,920 --> 00:10:07,520
Speaker 1: up of egg white mixed with various other ingredients. He

156
00:10:07,640 --> 00:10:10,720
Speaker 1: also took photos of Duncan during a seance, one of

157
00:10:10,800 --> 00:10:14,000
Speaker 1: which showed her draped in what appeared to be cheesecloth.

158
00:10:14,679 --> 00:10:19,320
Speaker 1: Price also described an effort to X ray Duncan's stomach

159
00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:23,400
Speaker 1: during a seance. Cheesecloth would not appear on an X ray,

160
00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:26,160
Speaker 1: but if there was a safety pin or some other

161
00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:29,520
Speaker 1: solid object used to keep all that together, that might

162
00:10:29,559 --> 00:10:32,200
Speaker 1: show up. But when it was time to do the

163
00:10:32,400 --> 00:10:36,720
Speaker 1: X rays, Duncan, purportedly in a trance, became agitated and

164
00:10:36,840 --> 00:10:42,360
Speaker 1: physically aggressive and refused to cooperate. Don't don't swallow safety pins,

165
00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:46,480
Speaker 1: you don't, don't, don't, don't do it. Duncan consented to

166
00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:49,040
Speaker 1: all of these investigations. It was paid for her work

167
00:10:49,040 --> 00:10:52,000
Speaker 1: as a medium during them, although her husband made the

168
00:10:52,080 --> 00:10:56,160
Speaker 1: arrangements for Prices investigation, so it's not totally clear how

169
00:10:56,240 --> 00:10:59,760
Speaker 1: much agency she had in that instance, but beyond that,

170
00:10:59,840 --> 00:11:04,360
Speaker 1: these tests and examinations were degrading and invasive. Prices account

171
00:11:04,480 --> 00:11:09,199
Speaker 1: repeatedly describes him and other men investigating quote, every orifice

172
00:11:09,280 --> 00:11:12,000
Speaker 1: of her body, and his descriptions of her body and

173
00:11:12,040 --> 00:11:16,200
Speaker 1: her weight are really dehumanizing. Although the results of these

174
00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:21,760
Speaker 1: investigations were reported in newspapers, Duncan's most ardent supporters were

175
00:11:21,840 --> 00:11:25,080
Speaker 1: not deterred. But not too long after this she ran

176
00:11:25,120 --> 00:11:28,720
Speaker 1: into bigger problems than just negative newspaper coverage, and we

177
00:11:28,760 --> 00:11:41,600
Speaker 1: will get into that after a sponsor break. In spite

178
00:11:41,679 --> 00:11:46,040
Speaker 1: of multiple investigations concluding that she was a fake, Helen

179
00:11:46,120 --> 00:11:50,080
Speaker 1: Duncan still had a lot of support into the nineteen forties,

180
00:11:50,800 --> 00:11:54,320
Speaker 1: and she really was not unique in that regard. In

181
00:11:54,360 --> 00:11:57,280
Speaker 1: the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a lot of people

182
00:11:57,440 --> 00:12:01,960
Speaker 1: and organizations were investigating mediums, and a lot of those

183
00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:06,959
Speaker 1: investigations concluded that nothing supernatural was going on. Sometimes there

184
00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:11,000
Speaker 1: was some very clear evidence of fakery, like the sounds

185
00:12:11,040 --> 00:12:14,200
Speaker 1: of knocking ghosts being made by the medium hitting the

186
00:12:14,280 --> 00:12:17,000
Speaker 1: underside of the table with a stick, or in the

187
00:12:17,040 --> 00:12:20,760
Speaker 1: case of Helen Duncan photographs of these very puppet like

188
00:12:20,920 --> 00:12:25,320
Speaker 1: constructions and ectoplasm that was obviously made of cheese cloth

189
00:12:25,360 --> 00:12:28,960
Speaker 1: and toilet paper. But this really did not dissuade a

190
00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:33,719
Speaker 1: lot of spiritualists. They naturally distrusted people and organizations who

191
00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:38,160
Speaker 1: were devoting themselves to debunking mediums. Even if a medium

192
00:12:38,200 --> 00:12:42,120
Speaker 1: confessed that they've been faking their work, people found explanations

193
00:12:42,160 --> 00:12:45,360
Speaker 1: that let them keep believing, like the confession had been

194
00:12:45,400 --> 00:12:48,760
Speaker 1: coerced and it wasn't true, or the person was a

195
00:12:48,800 --> 00:12:51,480
Speaker 1: real medium but had faked the say once that one

196
00:12:51,520 --> 00:12:55,120
Speaker 1: time because they wanted so badly to help usitter reconnect

197
00:12:55,160 --> 00:12:58,160
Speaker 1: with the loved one on the other side. In a

198
00:12:58,240 --> 00:13:02,800
Speaker 1: high profile example, Harry Hudini and Arthur Conan Doyle bonded

199
00:13:02,880 --> 00:13:07,040
Speaker 1: over their shared interest in spiritualism, but when Houdini became

200
00:13:07,080 --> 00:13:10,200
Speaker 1: convinced that it was not real and started doing demonstrations

201
00:13:10,200 --> 00:13:14,840
Speaker 1: of phony seance techniques on stage, Doyle continued to insist

202
00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:18,360
Speaker 1: that he really was psychic, calling him quote the greatest

203
00:13:18,440 --> 00:13:22,520
Speaker 1: physical medium of modern times. Houdini is going to appear

204
00:13:22,559 --> 00:13:25,600
Speaker 1: again this October. Uh There has been quite a bit

205
00:13:25,679 --> 00:13:29,920
Speaker 1: of psychological research into this during recent decades to understand

206
00:13:29,920 --> 00:13:34,120
Speaker 1: why many people double down on incorrect beliefs even when

207
00:13:34,240 --> 00:13:39,520
Speaker 1: presented with incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Beyond that the

208
00:13:39,559 --> 00:13:42,720
Speaker 1: field of photography had been evolving for more than a

209
00:13:42,840 --> 00:13:45,960
Speaker 1: century by the time Harvey Metcalf took those photos of

210
00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:50,120
Speaker 1: Helen Duncan, but mass marketed cameras had only been around

211
00:13:50,120 --> 00:13:55,959
Speaker 1: for about thirty years. People didn't necessarily trust photographs, and

212
00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:58,959
Speaker 1: as we talked about in our previous episode on William

213
00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:04,000
Speaker 1: Mummler's Spirit at Photography, people had already taken photos that

214
00:14:04,080 --> 00:14:08,920
Speaker 1: were then investigated for being deceptive. So even though there

215
00:14:08,920 --> 00:14:13,400
Speaker 1: were these photos of Duncan's seances, which are laughable to

216
00:14:13,640 --> 00:14:20,120
Speaker 1: a modern viewer, that didn't necessarily change people's minds. Duncan's

217
00:14:20,160 --> 00:14:24,880
Speaker 1: first fraud conviction also did not necessarily change people's minds.

218
00:14:25,400 --> 00:14:28,280
Speaker 1: This happened after a seance she conducted in Edinburgh in

219
00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:33,479
Speaker 1: ninety three. A sitter named sen Mall grabbed the manifestation

220
00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:36,320
Speaker 1: of Peggy, the spirit guide and found that she was

221
00:14:36,440 --> 00:14:40,600
Speaker 1: made from a knitted undervest. Mall reported this to the

222
00:14:40,600 --> 00:14:44,640
Speaker 1: police and Duncan was arrested, tried, convicted of fraud and

223
00:14:44,840 --> 00:14:47,640
Speaker 1: ordered to pay a fine of ten pounds or serve

224
00:14:47,680 --> 00:14:52,200
Speaker 1: a month in prison. After this, Duncan kept doing seances,

225
00:14:52,280 --> 00:14:56,960
Speaker 1: and despite that fraud conviction, she became increasingly popular. She

226
00:14:57,120 --> 00:15:01,600
Speaker 1: traveled all over Great Britain, particularly favoring hostal towns, and

227
00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:05,400
Speaker 1: as World War two began, more and more people sought

228
00:15:05,440 --> 00:15:07,880
Speaker 1: her help to try to speak to their loved ones

229
00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:12,920
Speaker 1: who had been killed. In late May of one, Brigadier

230
00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:18,000
Speaker 1: roy C. Firebrace attended one of Duncan's seances. Firebrace was

231
00:15:18,040 --> 00:15:20,800
Speaker 1: an astrologer. After the war, he would go on to

232
00:15:20,920 --> 00:15:26,239
Speaker 1: help found the Astrological Association of Great Britain. During this seance,

233
00:15:26,360 --> 00:15:29,080
Speaker 1: one of Duncan's spirit guides said that a Royal Navy

234
00:15:29,120 --> 00:15:32,880
Speaker 1: ship had just been sunk. Firebrace didn't know of any

235
00:15:32,880 --> 00:15:35,320
Speaker 1: such thing happening, and when he checked with other people

236
00:15:35,360 --> 00:15:38,600
Speaker 1: in the Royal Navy after the seance, they hadn't either.

237
00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:41,560
Speaker 1: But the next day he learned that the battle cruiser

238
00:15:41,760 --> 00:15:44,760
Speaker 1: h MS Hood had exploded after being struck by the

239
00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:48,680
Speaker 1: German battleship Bismarck at the Battle of Denmark, straight killing

240
00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:51,640
Speaker 1: all but three of its crew of more than fourteen hundred.

241
00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:56,520
Speaker 1: Something similar happened at another seance in Portsmouth. About six

242
00:15:56,600 --> 00:16:01,480
Speaker 1: months later, Duncan relate a message from a sailor named Sid,

243
00:16:01,520 --> 00:16:05,000
Speaker 1: whose mother was one of the sitters. Sid had been

244
00:16:05,080 --> 00:16:09,800
Speaker 1: aboard the HMS bar Um Queen Elizabeth Glass battleship, and

245
00:16:10,160 --> 00:16:14,720
Speaker 1: Sid said the ship had been sunk. His mother, of course,

246
00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:19,960
Speaker 1: was distraught, and she contacted the Admiralty about it. Once again.

247
00:16:20,240 --> 00:16:25,000
Speaker 1: The bar Um really had been sunk on November. The

248
00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:27,800
Speaker 1: ship had been struck by torpedoes from a German U

249
00:16:27,880 --> 00:16:31,240
Speaker 1: boat off the coast of Egypt. The ship had been

250
00:16:31,320 --> 00:16:34,160
Speaker 1: hit by three of the four torpedoes fired at it,

251
00:16:34,480 --> 00:16:37,440
Speaker 1: and it had exploded and sunk in under five minutes.

252
00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:41,480
Speaker 1: More than eight hundred fifty of the hundred fifty sailors

253
00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:45,840
Speaker 1: aboard had been killed. The Admiralty had really tried to

254
00:16:45,920 --> 00:16:49,240
Speaker 1: keep this quiet. They weren't sure if the German high

255
00:16:49,240 --> 00:16:52,720
Speaker 1: command knew about the sinking, and if they didn't, Brittain

256
00:16:52,800 --> 00:16:56,480
Speaker 1: surely did not want them to find out. British authorities

257
00:16:56,520 --> 00:17:00,000
Speaker 1: were also deeply concerned about the effect that the news

258
00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:03,560
Speaker 1: of a sunken battleship and so much loss of life

259
00:17:03,760 --> 00:17:06,879
Speaker 1: would have had on morale, both for the military and

260
00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:11,359
Speaker 1: for the public sources contradict on whether the sailor's next

261
00:17:11,359 --> 00:17:15,200
Speaker 1: of kin were notified promptly or whether that didn't happen

262
00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:19,080
Speaker 1: for several weeks. Either way, once the families heard, they

263
00:17:19,080 --> 00:17:22,040
Speaker 1: were told to keep it a secret. One source even

264
00:17:22,080 --> 00:17:25,680
Speaker 1: claims that the Royal Navy sent fake holiday messages on

265
00:17:25,760 --> 00:17:28,959
Speaker 1: the deceased sailor's behalf before informing anybody that they had

266
00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:32,800
Speaker 1: actually been killed. I could not find verification of that,

267
00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:34,600
Speaker 1: but it did come up in one of those sources

268
00:17:34,680 --> 00:17:38,520
Speaker 1: that I used for this episode. Regardless, though Britain did

269
00:17:38,560 --> 00:17:45,640
Speaker 1: not publicly announced that the ship had been sunk until January,

270
00:17:45,680 --> 00:17:49,520
Speaker 1: more than two months after it happened, after German media

271
00:17:49,600 --> 00:17:53,359
Speaker 1: had reported that it had happened, and also months after

272
00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:57,680
Speaker 1: it had come up in this seance. Although believers saw

273
00:17:57,760 --> 00:18:01,359
Speaker 1: this as evidence that Helen Duncan really was communicating with

274
00:18:01,400 --> 00:18:04,760
Speaker 1: people from beyond, others saw it as evidence that there

275
00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:08,760
Speaker 1: was an information league happening somewhere in the Royal Navy.

276
00:18:09,040 --> 00:18:12,760
Speaker 1: The Royal Navy Command Headquarters is in Portsmouth, and Portsmouth

277
00:18:13,040 --> 00:18:16,639
Speaker 1: was the bomb's home port, and even with efforts to

278
00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:19,080
Speaker 1: keep things quiet, there were a lot of people who

279
00:18:19,200 --> 00:18:21,720
Speaker 1: knew that the bar Room had been sunk, both within

280
00:18:21,760 --> 00:18:25,600
Speaker 1: the Royal Navy and outside of it. In addition to

281
00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:28,399
Speaker 1: all the sailors aboard all the other ships in the

282
00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:32,240
Speaker 1: convoy who witnessed that sinking, and everyone in the command

283
00:18:32,240 --> 00:18:35,200
Speaker 1: structure who would have heard about it, and everyone who

284
00:18:35,280 --> 00:18:37,840
Speaker 1: was part of the decision to keep it quiet, and

285
00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:41,920
Speaker 1: everyone who helped fake holiday messages home if that really happened.

286
00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:46,560
Speaker 1: The ship's explosion and sinking were captured on film by

287
00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:50,399
Speaker 1: a newsreel reporter from British Pathay, so it's likely that

288
00:18:50,520 --> 00:18:54,080
Speaker 1: thousands of people actually knew about this sinking, and that's

289
00:18:54,160 --> 00:18:57,160
Speaker 1: a lot of people to keep a secret, a lot

290
00:18:57,160 --> 00:19:00,399
Speaker 1: of people, and a lot of them concentrated in Smith,

291
00:19:00,920 --> 00:19:05,720
Speaker 1: where Helen Duncan was. There are also some discrepancies about

292
00:19:05,720 --> 00:19:09,040
Speaker 1: exactly what it was that Duncan said during the seance,

293
00:19:09,440 --> 00:19:12,959
Speaker 1: and some accounts she volunteered the name of the HMS

294
00:19:13,040 --> 00:19:14,960
Speaker 1: bar Hum and in others that came from more of

295
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:19,040
Speaker 1: a cold read asking questions of this sailor's mother until

296
00:19:19,080 --> 00:19:23,240
Speaker 1: she mentioned the ship's name. It's widely concluded that these

297
00:19:23,280 --> 00:19:27,919
Speaker 1: two seances, especially the second one, motivated British authorities to

298
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:31,159
Speaker 1: try to keep Helen Duncan quiet during the planning of

299
00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:34,160
Speaker 1: the d D invasion of Normandy, and that is why

300
00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:37,639
Speaker 1: she was tried under the Witchcraft Act. Planning for d

301
00:19:37,720 --> 00:19:41,520
Speaker 1: D started in nine and it was absolutely critical that

302
00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:45,960
Speaker 1: it be kept secret. Duncan had become enormously popular and

303
00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:49,679
Speaker 1: if she revealed some secret information in a seance, it

304
00:19:49,760 --> 00:19:53,080
Speaker 1: was going to be a serious problem. Talk more about that.

305
00:19:53,160 --> 00:20:07,080
Speaker 1: After another quick sponsor break in January of nineteen forty four,

306
00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:11,119
Speaker 1: Helen Duncan conducted a series of seances at the Master

307
00:20:11,240 --> 00:20:15,879
Speaker 1: Temple Psychic Center in Portsmouth, England. The Master Temple Psychic

308
00:20:15,960 --> 00:20:19,359
Speaker 1: Center was a space above Homer's drug Store and it

309
00:20:19,440 --> 00:20:23,359
Speaker 1: was registered as a church. Homer's drug Store was run

310
00:20:23,359 --> 00:20:27,359
Speaker 1: by Ernest Homer and Elizabeth Jones. They weren't technically married,

311
00:20:27,400 --> 00:20:29,399
Speaker 1: but they lived and worked together as a couple, and

312
00:20:29,440 --> 00:20:32,840
Speaker 1: most people just called them Mr. And Mrs Homer. They

313
00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:37,159
Speaker 1: were spiritualists. They donated any money they earned from spiritualist

314
00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:40,240
Speaker 1: events that they hosted above their shop to various charities

315
00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:44,639
Speaker 1: and spiritualist causes. They paid Helen Duncan a hundred and

316
00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:48,080
Speaker 1: four pounds for a week of seances, which she conducted

317
00:20:48,080 --> 00:20:52,560
Speaker 1: with the help of her assistant, Francis Brown. On January fourteenth,

318
00:20:52,720 --> 00:20:57,080
Speaker 1: nine four, two officers from the Royal Navy attended one

319
00:20:57,119 --> 00:21:01,280
Speaker 1: of these seances, a Lieutenant Worth and a Urgin Lieutenant Fowler.

320
00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:05,760
Speaker 1: Duncan claimed to manifest one of the men's mother and sister,

321
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:09,879
Speaker 1: but both of those people were actually alive. It is

322
00:21:09,960 --> 00:21:12,720
Speaker 1: possible that she had meant this message for someone else

323
00:21:12,760 --> 00:21:16,040
Speaker 1: in the room. The sitters had assigned seats, but there

324
00:21:16,080 --> 00:21:19,600
Speaker 1: had been some shuffling. I will just take a moment

325
00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:21,920
Speaker 1: to note that we are aware that in Britain people

326
00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:28,640
Speaker 1: say that left in it, but we are not British.

327
00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:32,080
Speaker 1: On the nineteen Worth went back for another seance, and

328
00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:36,120
Speaker 1: this time he was accompanied by a War Reserve Police officer.

329
00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:40,720
Speaker 1: During this seance, one of these men switched on the

330
00:21:40,760 --> 00:21:44,200
Speaker 1: main light and opened up the curtain to the medium's cabinet.

331
00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:47,879
Speaker 1: They found Duncan standing there barefoot, which she had this

332
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:52,600
Speaker 1: piece of white material. Police were outside waiting for a signal,

333
00:21:52,720 --> 00:21:55,600
Speaker 1: and when Worth blew a whistle to summon them, they

334
00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:59,040
Speaker 1: came barging in. They wanted to get that material as

335
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:03,920
Speaker 1: evidence that it wasn't really ectoplasm, but it disappeared generally

336
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:06,480
Speaker 1: believed that it got like passed from hands in hand

337
00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:11,960
Speaker 1: among the sitters and somebody secreted it away. Her account

338
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:14,800
Speaker 1: was that it got absorbed back into her body. There

339
00:22:14,840 --> 00:22:18,000
Speaker 1: are also reports that there was a hat band that

340
00:22:18,080 --> 00:22:21,680
Speaker 1: had purportedly been manifested from one of the sailors aboard

341
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:24,400
Speaker 1: the bar room, but it was printed with HMS bar

342
00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:27,480
Speaker 1: um when it should have just said HMS and not

343
00:22:27,560 --> 00:22:29,040
Speaker 1: the name of the ship, and that proved that it

344
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:33,480
Speaker 1: was fake. After this police raid, Helen Duncan, Francis Brown,

345
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 1: and Mr and Mrs Homer were all arrested. This was

346
00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:41,320
Speaker 1: apparently big enough news that the BBC interrupted a report

347
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:44,320
Speaker 1: on a Russian advance on the Eastern Front to talk

348
00:22:44,359 --> 00:22:48,960
Speaker 1: about it. At first, all four of them were charged

349
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:53,080
Speaker 1: under the Vagrancy Act of eighteen twenty four, or an

350
00:22:53,119 --> 00:22:56,600
Speaker 1: Act for the Punishment of Idle and Disorderly Persons and

351
00:22:56,760 --> 00:23:00,800
Speaker 1: robes and Vagabonds in that part of Great Britain Old England.

352
00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:05,240
Speaker 1: At this point, this was the act most often used

353
00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:09,920
Speaker 1: to prosecute people who were conducting seances. Section four of

354
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:14,280
Speaker 1: it read, in part quote every person pretending or professing

355
00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:18,960
Speaker 1: to tell fortunes, or using any subtle craft, means or

356
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:23,800
Speaker 1: device by Palmer Street, or otherwise to deceive and impose

357
00:23:23,880 --> 00:23:27,720
Speaker 1: on any of His Majesty's subjects, shall be deemed a

358
00:23:27,840 --> 00:23:31,760
Speaker 1: rogue and a vagabond within the true intent and meaning

359
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:36,560
Speaker 1: of this Act. So Duncan, Brown and the Homers were

360
00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:40,200
Speaker 1: by far not the only people to be charged under

361
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 1: this law. In the nineteen forties and other times too,

362
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:46,239
Speaker 1: because of the ongoing war, there were a lot of

363
00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:51,399
Speaker 1: people who were prosecuted, charged with basically taking advantage of

364
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 1: grieving families to give them fake mediumship under this act.

365
00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:00,679
Speaker 1: Part of the Vagrancy Act are still the books, and

366
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:02,479
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. It is a law that

367
00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 1: criminalizes poverty and homelessness, but most infractions of it were

368
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 1: considered to be relatively minor. The maximum sentence for offenses

369
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,639
Speaker 1: related to fortune telling was three months in prison, and

370
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 1: most people just paid a fine. In spite of that,

371
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:23,040
Speaker 1: Duncan was jailed for four days until being released on bail.

372
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 1: As we said before, it's generally understood that the point

373
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:30,480
Speaker 1: of all this was to try to make sure that

374
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:33,159
Speaker 1: Duncan would not be able to blab some kind of

375
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:37,440
Speaker 1: secret intelligence related to the D Day invasion that would

376
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:40,680
Speaker 1: require more than a fine and more than three months

377
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:43,560
Speaker 1: in jail, and that is where the Witchcraft Act of

378
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty five comes in. This was an act to

379
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:51,119
Speaker 1: repeal the statute made in the first year of the

380
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:55,280
Speaker 1: reign of King James the First entitled an Act against Conjuration,

381
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 1: Witchcraft and dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits, except so

382
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 1: much thereof as repeals an Act of the fifth year

383
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:07,880
Speaker 1: of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth against Conjurations, enchantments and Witchcrafts,

384
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 1: And to repeal an Act passed in the Parliament of

385
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:15,679
Speaker 1: Scotland in the ninth Parliament of Queen Mary, entitled Anent

386
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:20,520
Speaker 1: tous Witchcrafts, for and for punishing such persons as pretends

387
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 1: to exercise or use any kind of witchcraft sorcery, enchantment

388
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:30,959
Speaker 1: or conjuration. Under this Witchcraft Act, a person could be

389
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 1: sentenced to a fine and imprisonment for up to a year,

390
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:38,240
Speaker 1: along with having to stand in the pillory for an

391
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:41,720
Speaker 1: hour every quarter, although at this point the pillory had

392
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 1: been abolished in England for more than a century. To

393
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 1: be extremely clear, if someone was tried for violating the

394
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:54,160
Speaker 1: Witchcraft Act of five, they were not being tried for witchcraft.

395
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:58,440
Speaker 1: It was not possible to try someone for witchcraft under

396
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 1: the Witchcraft Act of seven five. In fact, the Act

397
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:07,719
Speaker 1: outlawed trying people for witchcraft. Quote No prosecution, suit or

398
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:11,479
Speaker 1: proceedings shall be commenced or carried on against any person

399
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 1: or persons for witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment, or conjuration, or for

400
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 1: charging another with any such offense, in any court whatsoever

401
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:26,640
Speaker 1: in Great Britain. Instead, this Act targeted people who quote

402
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:31,359
Speaker 1: pretend to exercise or use any kind of witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment,

403
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 1: or conjuration, or to undertake to tell fortunes, or pretend,

404
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 1: from his or her skill or knowledge in any occult

405
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:44,320
Speaker 1: or crafty science, to discover where, or in what manner,

406
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:47,919
Speaker 1: any goods or chattel's supposed to have been stolen or

407
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:52,119
Speaker 1: lost maybe found. In other words, this was built around

408
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: the idea that witchcraft was not real, and that the

409
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: people who claimed to be witches or sorcerers or enchanters

410
00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:05,359
Speaker 1: or conjurors or fortune tellers were defrauding people. This act

411
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 1: was a response to the horrifying witch trials that had

412
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: taken place in the UK and elsewhere, especially during the

413
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: seventeenth and early eighteen centuries, at which point witchcraft itself

414
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: was illegal under those laws that the Witchcraft Act repealed.

415
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:23,440
Speaker 1: We have talked about those earlier laws and the witch

416
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 1: hunts connected to them in previous episodes of the show,

417
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 1: including our episode on Matthew Hopkins, who builled himself as

418
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:33,399
Speaker 1: the witch Finder General, which we ran as a recent

419
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:37,440
Speaker 1: Saturday classic. So the Witchcraft Act of seventeen thirty five

420
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: repealed the Kingdom of Great Britain's laws that framed witchcraft

421
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 1: is real and replaced them with one that framed witchcraft

422
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 1: as pretend. Duncan, Brown and the Homers were charged with

423
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:53,920
Speaker 1: seven crimes, including in fractions of the Witchcraft Act. Those

424
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:58,199
Speaker 1: charges were connected to Duncan purporting Quotes to exercise or

425
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 1: use a kind of conjuration, and that, through the agency

426
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: of Helen Duncan's, spirits of deceased persons should appear to

427
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: be present in such a place as Helen Duncan was

428
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:12,800
Speaker 1: then in, and that the said spirits were communicating with

429
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 1: living persons then present. There were also charges under the

430
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 1: Larceny Act because Duncan had taken money quote by falsely

431
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 1: pretending that she was in a position to bring about

432
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:28,640
Speaker 1: the appearances of the spirits of deceased persons, and they

433
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 1: were all charged with quote, affecting a public mischief. All

434
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 1: these charges were connected to the seances that had taken

435
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 1: place on January fourteenth and nineteenth, which we've already talked about,

436
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 1: as well as when she conducted on the seventeen that

437
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 1: was attended by a dock worker known as Mr Burrell,

438
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 1: and he was a medium himself, but did not find

439
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 1: Duncan's manifestations to be convincing at all. This trial began

440
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: on March twenty three, ninety four, in Court four of

441
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 1: the Central Criminal Court a k. The Old Bailey before

442
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 1: Recorder of London, Sir Gerald Dodson. That building had been

443
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: damaged in the blitz. The public gallery was closed, but

444
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 1: people thronged the entire area and packed into the accessible

445
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: areas of the building to try to get a look.

446
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: The trial and its aftermath were widely reported all over

447
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: the UK and in the United States. All for defendants

448
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 1: pleaded not guilty, and at the start of the trial,

449
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 1: prosecutor John Maud stressed that they were not being tried

450
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: as witches. Quote, I want to make it abundantly clear

451
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 1: at the very commencement of this prosecution that this is

452
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 1: in no way connected with witchcraft. It is in no

453
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:45,240
Speaker 1: way aimed at the honest beliefs, whatever they may be,

454
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:48,720
Speaker 1: of any man or woman. What it is aimed at

455
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: is something quite different. It is aimed at just ordinary

456
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 1: common fraud. Meanwhile, the defense was led by Barrister ce Lowsby,

457
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: who was a spiritualist and whose services were arranged by

458
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: the Spiritualists National Union. His defense was built around calling

459
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 1: nearly fifty witnesses to attest to Duncan seances being the

460
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 1: real thing. This involved a very long chain of people

461
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: recounting what they had seen at seances going all the

462
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 1: way back to the early nineteen thirties, and all of

463
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: the various things that they said she'd manifested or had

464
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:28,800
Speaker 1: told them while on the stand. Portsmouth's Chief Constable Arthur

465
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 1: West referenced the bar Um sinking saying quote. On one

466
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: occasion in ninety one, she was reported as having transgressed

467
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 1: the security laws again in a naval connection, when she

468
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: foretold the loss of one of His Majesty's ships, long

469
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 1: before the fact was made public. I can only describe

470
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 1: this woman as an unmitigated humbug who can only be

471
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: regarded as a pest to a certain section of society.

472
00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 1: The trial went on for seven days, and at the

473
00:30:59,880 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 1: end of the recorder instructed the jury to simplify the

474
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:06,760
Speaker 1: issue and deliberate only on the charges related to the

475
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 1: Witchcraft Act, to ignore the others. After deliberating for less

476
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: than half an hour, the jury found all four defendants guilty.

477
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: You could argue that what her defense really did was

478
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: established that she had been doing this illegal thing for

479
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: more than a decade with a whole lot of witness testimony.

480
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 1: Duncan was sentenced to nine months in prison. Her assistant,

481
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 1: Francis Brown, was sentenced to four months in prison. Brown

482
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 1: had shown Lieutenant Worth some spirit photos and support of

483
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 1: Duncan's claim to be a medium, so she was considered

484
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:49,120
Speaker 1: to have committed a fraud of her own. The homers

485
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 1: were bound over. In other words, they were released under

486
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: the condition that they had to maintain good behavior and

487
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 1: not reoffend. Don't hire any more mediums to come and

488
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 1: hang out of your place. If this really was all

489
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 1: an intentional effort to keep Duncan quiet through the Normandy invasion,

490
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Winston Churchill does not seem to have been

491
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 1: aware of it. On April third, nine, apparently after reading

492
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 1: news coverage of the trial, he sent a memo to

493
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 1: the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, which read quote, let me

494
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: have a report on why the Witchcraft Acts seventeen thirty

495
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 1: five was used in a modern court of justice? What

496
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: was the cost of this trial to the state? Observing

497
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,240
Speaker 1: that witnesses were brought from Portsmouth and maintained here in

498
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: this crowded London for a fortnight, and the recorder kept

499
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 1: busy with all this obsolete tomfoolery, to the detriment of

500
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 1: necessary work in the courts. The defendants attorneys filed an appeal,

501
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 1: but in part because it took so incredibly long to

502
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:56,720
Speaker 1: transcribe the testimony of all those many defense witnesses that

503
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: did not happen for months. By the time the appeal

504
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: was heard, Francis Brown had already completed her sentence with

505
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: time off for good behavior. The convictions were upheld, though

506
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:12,720
Speaker 1: Duncan was returned to Holloway Prison. The prison was damaged

507
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 1: in a bombing in the summer of nineteen forty four

508
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 1: while Duncan was still incarcerated. There She reportedly conducted seances

509
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 1: from her cell, and she was released on September twenty two,

510
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: nineteen forty four, having served about six months. She was not,

511
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,320
Speaker 1: as it is widely reported, the last person tried for

512
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: violating the Witchcraft Act. That seems to be Jane Rebecca

513
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 1: York of Forrest Gate in east Ham, who was tried

514
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 1: in late nineteen forty four, also in the Old Bailey,

515
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 1: in the same court and with the same prosecutor as

516
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:47,960
Speaker 1: Duncan had been. Apparently, what got York in bad enough

517
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 1: trouble to face charges under the Witchcraft Act instead of

518
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: the Vagrancy Act included impersonating Queen Victoria. Although she was convicted,

519
00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: York was not jailed because of her age she was

520
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: in her seventies. She paid a fine of five pounds.

521
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:08,759
Speaker 1: Duncan's conviction and jail sentence have been credited with sparking

522
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: a movement to repeal the Witchcraft Act, in part because

523
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:16,360
Speaker 1: it could be read as outlawing spiritualism across the board,

524
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:19,920
Speaker 1: and the words of d ABD. Collins, writing in the

525
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:24,359
Speaker 1: Modern Law Review in July of nine, quote now by

526
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 1: the invocation of an obsolete statute which was framed with

527
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: entirely different ideas. The practice of mediumship has in effect

528
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:37,759
Speaker 1: been made illegal, and here and there police consider it

529
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:40,359
Speaker 1: their duty to try to put a stop to it.

530
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:44,160
Speaker 1: The Witchcraft Acts and the relevant parts of the Vagrancy

531
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 1: Act were repealed under the Fraudulent Medium's Act of nineteen

532
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 1: fifty one, or an Act to repeal the Witchcraft Act

533
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty five and to make in substitution for certain

534
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:59,360
Speaker 1: provisions of Section four of the Vagrancy Act. Four express

535
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:03,440
Speaker 1: provision of the punishment of persons who fraudulently purport to

536
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:08,640
Speaker 1: act as spiritualistic mediums or to exercise powers of telepathy, clairvoyance,

537
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 1: or other similar powers. Under this new law, a person

538
00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: was guilty of an offense if they quote a with

539
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:21,600
Speaker 1: intent to deceive, purport to act as a spiritualistic medium,

540
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 1: or exercise any powers of telepathy, clairvoyance or other similar powers,

541
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 1: or be and purporting to act as a spiritualistic medium

542
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 1: or to exercise such powers, as Alford said, uses any

543
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 1: fraudulent device, in other words, spiritualism acting as a medium.

544
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:43,480
Speaker 1: There were only a crime if carried out with the

545
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 1: intent to deceive. Later on, the law specified that a

546
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:50,719
Speaker 1: person could only be convicted of this offense if they

547
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:55,239
Speaker 1: had taken money or something else of value in exchange

548
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:59,400
Speaker 1: for doing this. So if you genuinely believed that you

549
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:02,720
Speaker 1: can talk to spirits, that was no longer a crime,

550
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:05,319
Speaker 1: but if you faked people out about it and took

551
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:08,959
Speaker 1: their money, it was. Even after these changes in the law,

552
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:12,360
Speaker 1: Helen Duncan was arrested at least one other time in

553
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:15,760
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six, although this time she did not face charges,

554
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: but some of her family pointed to this arrest as

555
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 1: causing a rapid decline in her health. She died just

556
00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:25,880
Speaker 1: a few months later, on December six, ninety six, at

557
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 1: the age of fifty nine. Her cause of death was

558
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:32,320
Speaker 1: diabetes and heart failure. She was cremated and her ashes

559
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 1: were scattered at a cemetery in Calendar. The Fraudulent Mediums

560
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 1: Act was repealed under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading

561
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: Regulations in two thousand eight, but aside from the sections

562
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:50,240
Speaker 1: related to fortune telling, many other provisions of the Vagrancy

563
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:53,840
Speaker 1: Act are still on the books. That act is currently

564
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 1: under review. As we said earlier, parts of it essentially

565
00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: criminalized homelessness without doing any thing to address the causes

566
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: of homelessness. The UK government has expressed an intent to

567
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:09,800
Speaker 1: repeal this law, but only after analyzing how it's repeal

568
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 1: would affect things like law enforcement and what they should

569
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 1: include in a different law to take its place. Some

570
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 1: of Duncan's descendants have also taken up an effort to

571
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:23,840
Speaker 1: get her posthumously pardoned. The Scottish Parliament rejected a petition

572
00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: to do so in two thousand eight. Yeah, I'm not

573
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 1: totally sure if that effort is still ongoing. There used

574
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:34,439
Speaker 1: to be a website about it, but that website it's

575
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:38,799
Speaker 1: no longer there. Do you have listener mail to take

576
00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,800
Speaker 1: us out of this medium discussion? I do? I do?

577
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: This is from Lauren. Lauren wrote, Hello, This will be

578
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:46,440
Speaker 1: more of a comment and less of a letter. But

579
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:50,319
Speaker 1: when I was in college undergrad for chemical engineering, I

580
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: was an undergraduate researcher a k A glorified dishwasher in

581
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:58,880
Speaker 1: an environmental engineering lab at my school. Grad student I

582
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 1: was working with was trying to use ozone to remove

583
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:05,280
Speaker 1: medicinal waste from waste water that arrived either through people

584
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:08,759
Speaker 1: flushing their medicine down the toilet or urine. This was

585
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 1: certainly targeting one particular drug or type of drug. But

586
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:13,799
Speaker 1: to be quite honest, I barely understood what was going

587
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:17,360
Speaker 1: on then and it's been several years since so, but

588
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: I was listening to the behind the scenes episode on

589
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 1: this and when y'all were talking about it, I just

590
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:24,520
Speaker 1: wanted to interrupt and say, yes, it's still an issue

591
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,440
Speaker 1: and still is an issue for so many other drugs

592
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 1: than just antibiotics. Thanks so much for the podcast. It

593
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:34,719
Speaker 1: makes doing all the paperwork at my job more bearable.

594
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:37,280
Speaker 1: And it's so sorry for the complete lack of grammar.

595
00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 1: It's possibly the Internet speak flush engineer's complete lack of

596
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:43,439
Speaker 1: communication skills I possess. I did not notice any lack

597
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: of grammar, so there's no need to apologize for that.

598
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 1: Um it was indeed still comprehensible. And then attached is

599
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 1: a terrible picture of my kittie, Oliver and his new

600
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: fault bow tie. I love a kiddie in a bow tie.

601
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:00,359
Speaker 1: It is an adorable picture, so thank you Lauren. Of course,

602
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 1: this followed our episode on penicillin and a brief discussion

603
00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:09,399
Speaker 1: we had about um penicillin and other drugs in wastewater UM,

604
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:13,120
Speaker 1: and we sort of had a like unscripted discussion I

605
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:14,680
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I think it's still a problem. It's

606
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 1: definitely still a problem. Some drugs can be removed from

607
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 1: the wastewater through wastewater treatment, some of them can't, like

608
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:23,439
Speaker 1: not all of them are, and then it makes its

609
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:26,800
Speaker 1: way back into the ecosystem, not just into like the

610
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:32,200
Speaker 1: drinking water in people's homes, but everywhere. Um so, yes,

611
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 1: it's a whole, big, ongoing issue. So thank you again, Lauren.

612
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 1: We're sending this email and the great cat picture if

613
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:43,440
Speaker 1: you would like to send us a note. We're at

614
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:46,879
Speaker 1: History Podcast at i heeart radio dot com. We're all

615
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:50,520
Speaker 1: over social media, missing history that story. I'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,

616
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 1: and Instagram, and you can subscribe to our show on

617
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:56,600
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app or wherever you like to

618
00:39:56,640 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is

619
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:07,520
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from

620
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:10,919
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

621
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H