Thursday, 7 August 2025

The Botathen Ghost ~ Robert Stephen Hawker

In the spring of 1720, Daniel Defoe published his History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell. Later that year, a second edition was issued, some copies of which included the pamphlet Mr. Campbell's Pacquet, for the Entertainment of Gentleman and Ladies. This Pacquet contained 'A Remarkable Passage of an Apparition, related by the Rev. Dr. Ruddle, of Launceston in Cornwall, in the year 1665'. According to Sabine Baring-Gould in Cornish Characters and Strange Events (published in 1909), the haunting it described, by one Dorothy Dingle, was 'no invention of Defoe; it was a genuine narrative written by the hand of John Ruddle himself.'

In volume 1 of C. S. Gilbert’s Historical Survey of Cornwall, published in 1817, the ghost is called Dingley; but in volume 2, Gilbert states that this is an error as it should be Durant. She is also Durant in Fortescue Hitchins’ The History of Cornwall, published in 1824, and in Rev. F. G. Lee’s Glimpses of the Supernatural, published in 1875. Baring-Gould thought this name change was the result of confusion.

In R. S. Hawker's 'The Botathen Ghost', which first appeared in All the Year Round in 1867 (vol. xvii, pp. 501-504), the spectre is named Dorothy Dinglet. In 1903, 'The Botathen Ghost' appeared in Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall, edited by Charles Edward Byles, Hawker’s son-in-law (published by John Lane, The Bodley Head). The version typed here is taken from the 1908 of that book, and the footnotes below are taken from the same volume; they are different from those of the 1903 edition (see note no. 3 below).

"Parson Rudall" of Botathen from a picture in the possession of
Rev. S. Baring-Gould.

There was something very painful and peculiar in the position of the clergy in the west of England throughout the seventeenth century. The Church of those days was in a transitory state, and her ministers, like her formularies, embodied a strange mixture of the old belief with the new interpretation. Their wide severance also from the great metropolis of life and manners, the city of London (which in those times was civilised England, much as Paris of our own day is France), divested the Cornish clergy in particular of all personal access to the masterminds of their age and body. Then, too, the barrier interposed by the rude rough roads of their country, and by their abode in wilds that were almost inaccessible, rendered the existence of a bishop rather a doctrine suggested to their belief than a fact revealed to the actual vision of each in his generation. Hence it came to pass that the Cornish clergyman, insulated within his own limited sphere, often without even the presence of a country squire (and unchecked by the influence of the Fourth Estate—for until the beginning of this nineteenth century, Flindell’s Weekly Miscellany distributed from house to house from the pannier of a mule, was the only light of the West), became developed about middle life into an original mind and man, sole and absolute within his parish boundary, eccentric when compared with his brethren in civilised regions, and yet, in German phrase, “a whole and seldom man” in his dominion of souls. He was “the parson,” in canonical phrase—that is to say, The Person, the somebody of consequence among his own people. These men were not, however, smoothed down into a monotonous aspect of life and manners by this remote and secluded existence. They imbibed, each in his own peculiar circle, the hue of surrounding objects, and were tinged into distinctive colouring and character by many a contrast of scenery and people.1 There was the “light of other days,” the curate by the sea-shore, who professed to check the turbulence of the “smugglers' landing” by his presence on the sands, and who “held the lantern” for the guidance of his flock when the nights were dark, as the only proper ecclesiastical part he could take in the proceedings. He was smoothed and silenced by the gift of a keg of hollands or a chest of tea. There was the merry minister of the mines, whose cure was honeycombed by the underground men. He must needs have been artist and poet in his way, for he had to enliven his people three or four times a-year, by mastering the arrangements of a “guary,” or religious mystery, which was duly performed in the topmost hollow of a green barrow or hill, of which many survive, scooped out into vast amphitheatres and surrounded by benches of turf, which held two thousand spectators. Such were the historic plays, “The Creation” and “Noe’s Flood,” which still exist in the original Celtic as well as the English text, and suggest what critics and antiquaries Cornish curates, masters of such revels, must have been,—for the native language of Cornwall did not lapse into silence until the end of the seventeenth century. Then, moreover, here and there would be one parson more learned than his kind in the mysteries of a deep and thrilling lore of peculiar fascination. He was a man so highly honoured at college for natural gifts and knowledge of learned books which nobody else could read, that when he “took his second orders” the bishop have him a mantle of scarlet silk to wear upon his shoulders in church, and his lordship had put such power into it that, when the parson had it rightly on, he could “govern any ghost or evil spirit,” and even “stop an earthquake.”

Such a powerful minister, in combat with supernatural visitations, was one Parson Rudall,2 of Launceston, whose existence and exploits we gather from the local tradition of his time, from surviving letters and other memoranda, and indeed from his own “diurnal”2 which fell by chance into the hands of the present writer. Indeed the legend of Parson Rudall and the Botathen Ghost will be recognised by many Cornish people as a local remembrance of their boyhood.

It appears, then, from the diary of this learned master of the grammar-school—for such was his office as well as perpetual curate of the parish—“that a pestilential disease did break forth in our town in the beginning of the year A.D. 1665; yea, and it likewise invaded my school, insomuch that therewithal certain of the chief scholars sickened and died.” “Among others who yielded to the malign influence was Master John Eliot, the eldest son and the worshipful heir of Edward Eliot, Esquire of Trebursey, a stripling of sixteen years of age, but of uncommon parts and hopeful ingenuity.4At his own especial motion and earnest desire I did consent to preach his funeral sermon.” It should be remembered here that, however strange and singular it may sound to us that a mere lad should formally solicit such a performance at the hands of his master, it was in consonance with the habitual usage of those times. The old services for the dead had been abolished by law, and in the stead of sacrament and ceremony, month’s mind and year’s mind, the sole substitute which survived was the general desire “to partake,” as they called it, of a posthumous discourse, replete with lofty eulogy and flattering remembrance of the living and the dead. The diary proceeds:—

“I fulfilled my undertaking, and preached over the coffin in the presence of a full assemblage of mourners and lachrymose friends. An ancient gentleman, who was then and there in the church, a Mr. Bligh of Botathen,5 was much affected with my discourse, and he was heard to repeat to himself certain parentheses therefrom, especially a phrase from Maro Virgilius, which I had applied to the deceased youth, ‘Et puer ipse fuit cantari dignus.’

“The cause wherefore this old gentleman was thus moved by my applications was this: He had a first-born and only son—a child who, but a very few months before, had been not unworthy the character I drew of young Master Eliot, but who, by some strange accident, had of late quite fallen away from his parent’s hopes, and become moody, and sullen, and distraught. When the funeral obsequies were over, I had no sooner come out of church than I was accosted by this aged parent, and he besought me incontinently, with a singular energy, that I would resort with him forthwith to his abode at Botathen that very night; nor could I have delivered myself from his importunity, had not Mr. Eliot urged his claim to enjoy my company at his own house. Hereupon I got loose, but not until I had pledged a fast assurance that I would pay him, faithfully, an early visit the next day.”

“The Place,” as it was called, of Botathen, where old Mr. Bligh resided, was a low-roofed gabled manor-house of the fifteenth century, walled and mullioned, and with clustered chimneys of dark-grey stone from the neighbouring quarries of Ventor-gan. The mansion was flanked by a pleasaunce or enclosure in one space, of garden and lawn, and it was surrounded by a solemn grove of stag-horned trees. It had the sombre aspect of age and of solitude, and looked the very scene of strange and supernatural events. A legend might well belong to every gloomy glade around, and there must surely be a haunted room somewhere within its walls. Hither, according to his appointment, on the morrow, Parson Rudall betook himself. Another clergyman, as it appeared, had been invited to meet him, who, very soon after his arrival, proposed a walk together in the pleasaunce, on the pretext of showing him, as a stranger, the walks and trees, until the dinner-bell should strike. There, with much prolixity, and with many a solemn pause, his brother minister proceeded to “unfold the mystery.”

' "The Place" of Botathen' by J. Ley Pethybridge.

“A singular infelicity,” he declared, “had befallen young Master Bligh, once the hopeful heir of his parents and of the lands of Botathen. Whereas he had been from childhood a blithe and merry boy, ‘the gladness,’ like Isaac of old, of his father’s age, he had suddenly, and of late, become morose and silent—nay, even austere and stern—dwelling apart, always solemn, often in tears. The lad had ta first repulsed all questions as to the origin of this great change, but of late he had yielded to the importunate researches of his parents, and had disclosed the secret cause. It appeared that he resorted, every day, by a pathway across the fields, to this very clergyman’s house, who had charge of his education, and grounded him in the studies suitable to his age. In the course of his daily walk he had to pass a certain heath or down where the road would along through tall blocks of granite with open spaces of grassy sward between. There in a certain spot, and always in one and the same place, the lad declared that he encountered, every day, a woman with a pale and troubled face, clothed in a long loose garment of frieze, with one hand always stretched forth, and the other pressed against her side. Her name, he said, was Dorothy Dinglet,6 for he had known her well from his childhood, and she often used to come to his parents’ house; but that which troubled him was, that she had now been dead three years, and he himself had been with the neighbours at her burial; so that, as the youth alleged, with great simplicity, since he had seen her body laid in the grave, this that he saw every day must needs be her soul or ghost. ‘Questioned again and again,’ said the clergyman, ‘he never contradicts himself; but he relates the same and the simple tale as a thing that cannot be gainsaid. Indeed, the lad’s observance is keen and calm for a boy of his age. The hair of the appearance, sayeth he, is not like anything alive, but it is so soft and light that it seemeth to melt away while you look; but her eyes are set, and never blink—no, not when the sun shineth full upon her face. She maketh no steps, but seemeth to swim along the top of the grass; and her hand, which is stretched out alway, seemeth to point at something far away, out of sight. It is her continual coming; for she never faileth to meet him; and to pass on, that hath quenched his spirits; and although he never seeth her by night, yet he cannot get his natural rest.’

“Thus far the clergyman; whereupon the dinner clock did sound, and we went into the house. After dinner, when young Master Bligh had withdrawn with his tutor, under excuse of their books, the parents did forthwith beset me as to my thoughts about their son. Said I, warily, ‘The case is strange, but by no means impossible. It is one that I will study, and fear not to handle, if the lad will be free with me, and fulfil all that I desire.’ The mother was overjoyed, but I perceived that old Mr. Bligh turned pale, and was downcast with some thought which, however, he did not express. Then they bade that Master Bligh should be called to meet me in the pleasaunce forthwith. The boy came, and he rehearsed to me his tale with an open countenance, and, withal, a modesty of speech. Verily he seemed ‘ingenui vultus puer ingenuique pudoris.’ Then I signified to him my purpose. ‘To-morrow,’ said I, ‘we will go together to the place; and if, as I doubt not, the woman shall appear, it will be for me to proceed according to knowledge, and by rules laid down in my books.’ ”

The unaltered scenery of the legend still survives, an, like the field of the forty footsteps in another history, the place is still visited by those who take interest in the supernatural tales of old. The pathway leads along a moorland waste, where large masses of rock stand up here and there from the grassy turf, and clumps of heath and gorse weave their tapestry of golden and purple garniture on every side. Amidst all these, and winding along between the rocks, is a natural footway worn by the scant, rare tread of the village traveller. Just midway, a somewhat larger stretch than usual of green sod expands, which is skirted by the path, and which is still identified as the legendary haunt of the phantom, by the name of Parson Rudall’s Ghost.

But we must draw the record of the first interview between the minister and Dorothy from his own words. “We met,” thus he writes, “in the pleasaunce very early, and before any others in the house were awake; and together the lad and myself proceeded towards the field. The youth was quite composed, and carried his Bible under his arm, from whence he read to me verses, which he said he had lately picked out, to have always in his mind. These were Job vii. 14, ‘Thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions;’ and Deuteronomy xxviii. 67, ‘In the morning thou shalt say, Would to God it were evening, and in the evening thou shalt say, Would to God it were morning; for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.’

“I was much pleased with the lad’s ingenuity in these pious applications, but for mine own part I was somewhat anxious and out of cheer. For aught I knew this might be a dæmonium meridianum, the most stubborn spirit to govern and guide that any man can meet, and the most perilous withal. We had hardly reached the accustomed spot, when we both saw her at once gliding towards us; punctually as the ancient writers describe the motion of their ‘lemures, which swoon along the ground, neither marking the sand nor bending the herbage.’ The aspect of the woman was exactly that which had been related by the lad. There was the pale and stony face, the strange and misty hair, the eyes firm and fixed, that gazed, yet not on us, but on something that they saw far, far away; one hand and arm stretched out, and the other grasping the girdle of her waist. She floated along the field like a sail upon a stream, and glided past the spot where we stood, pausingly. But so deep was the awe that overcame me, as I stood there in the light of day, face to face with a human soul separate from her bones and flesh, that my heart and purpose both failed me. I had resolved to speak to the spectre in the appointed form of words, but I did not. I stood like one amazed and speechless, until she had passed clean out of sight. One thing remarkable came to pass. A spaniel dog, the favourite of young Master Bligh, had followed us, and lo! when the woman drew night, the poor creature began to yell and bark piteously, and ran backwards and away, like a thing dismayed and appalled. We returned to the house, and after I had said all that I could to pacify the lad, and to soothe the aged people, I took my leave for that time, with a promise that when I had fulfilled certain business elsewhere, which I then alleged, I would return and take orders to assuage these disturbances and their cause.

January 7, 1665.—At my own house, I find, by my books, what is expedient to be done; and then, Apage, Sathanas!

January 9, 1665.—This day I took leave of my wife and family, under pretext  of engagements elsewhere, and made my secret journey to our diocesan city, wherein the good and venerable bishop then abode.

January 10.—Deo gratias, in safe arrival at Exeter; craved and obtained immediate audience of his lordship; pleading it was for counsel and admonition on a weighty and pressing cause; called to the presence; made obeisance; and then by command stated by case—the Botathan perplexity—which I moved with strong and earnest instances and solemn asseverations of that which I had myself seen and heard. Demanded by his lordship, what was the succour that I had come to entreat at his hands? Replied, licence for my exorcism, that so I might, ministerially, allay this spiritual visitant, and thus render to the living and the dead release from this surprise. ‘But,’ said our bishop, ‘on what authority do you allege that I am intrusted with faculty so to do? Our Church, as is well known, hath abjured certain branches of her ancient power, on grounds of perversion and abuse.’ ‘Nay, my lord,’ I humbly answered, ‘under favour, the seventy-second of the canons ratified and enjoined on us, the clergy, anno Domini 1604, doth expressly provide, that “no minister, unless he hath the licence of his diocesan bishop, shall essay to exorcise a spirit, evil or good.” Therefore it was,’ I did here mildly allege, ‘that I did not presume to enter on such a work without lawful privilege under your lordship’s hand and seal.’ Hereupon did our wise and learned bishop, sitting in his chair, condescend upon the theme at some length with many gracious interpretations from ancient writers and from Holy Scripture, and I did humbly rejoin and reply, till the upshot was that he did call in his secretary and command him to draw the aforesaid faculty, forthwith and without further delay, assigning him a form, insomuch that the matter was incontinently done; and after I had disbursed into the secretary’s hands certain moneys for signitary purposes, as the manner of such officers hath always been, the bishop did himself affix his signature under the sigillum of his see, and deliver the document into my hands. When I knelt down to receive his benediction, he softly said, ‘Let it be secret, Mr. R. Weak brethren! weak brethren!’ ”

This interview with the bishop, and the success with which he vanquished his lordship’s scruples, would seem to have confirmed Parson Rudall very strongly in his own esteem, and to have invested him with that courage which he evidently lacked at his first encounter with the ghost.

The entries proceed: “January 11, 1665.—Therewithal did I hasten home and prepare my instruments, and cast my figures for the onset of the next day. Took out my ring of brass, and put it on the index-finger of my right hand, with scutum Davidis traced thereon.

January 12, 1665.—Rode into the gateway at Botathen, armed at all points, but not with Saul’s armour, and ready. There is danger from the demons, but so there is in the surrounding air every day. At early morning then, and alone,—for so the usage ordains,—I betook me towards the field. It was void, and I had thereby due time to prepare. First, I paced and measured out my circle on the grass. Then did I mark my pentacle7 in the very midst, and at the intersection of the five angles I did set up and fix my crutch of raun8 [rowan]. Lastly, I took my station south, at the true line of the meridian, and stood facing due north. I waited and watched for a long time. At last there was a kind of trouble in the air, a soft and rippling sound, and all at once the shape appeared, and came on towards me gradually. I opened my parchment-scroll, an dread aloud the command. She paused, and seemed to waver and doubt; stood still; then I rehearsed the sentence again, sounding out every syllable like a chant. She drew near my ring, but halted at first outside, on the brink. I sounded again, and now at the third time I gave the signal in Syriac—the speech which is used, they say, where such ones dwell and converse in thoughts that glide.

“She was at last obedient, and swam into the midst of the circle, and there stood still, suddenly. I saw, moreover, that she drew back her pointing hand. All this while I do confess my knees shook under me, and the drops of sweat ran down my flesh like rain. But now, although face to face with the spirit, my heart grew calm, and my mind was composed. I knew that the pentacle would govern her, and the ring must bind, until I gave the word. Then I called to mind the rule laid down of old, that no angel or fiend, no spirit, good or evil, will ever speak until they have been first spoken to. N.B.—This is the great law of prayer. God Himself will not yield reply until man hath made vocal entreaty, once and again. So I went on to demand, as the books advise; and the phantom made answer, willingly. Questioned wherefore not at rest? Unquiet, because of a certain sin. Asked what, and by whom? Revealed it; but it is sub sigillo, and therefore nefas dictu; more anon. Inquired, what sign she could give that she was a true spirit and not a false fiend? Stated, before next Yule-tide a fearful pestilence would lay waste the land and myriads of souls would be loosened from their flesh, until, as she piteously said, ‘our valleys will be full.’ Asked again, why she so terrified the lad? Replied” ‘It is the law: we must seek a youth or a maiden of clean life, and under age, to receive messages and admonitions.’ We conversed with many more words, but it is not lawful for me to set them down. Pen and ink would degrade and defile the thoughts she uttered, and which my mind received that day. I broke the ring, and she passed, but to return once more next day. At even-song, a long discourse with that ancient transgressor, Mr. B. Great horror and remorse; entire atonement and penance; whatsoever I enjoin; full acknowledgement before pardon.

January 13, 1665.—At sunrise I was again in the field. She came in at once, and, as it seemed, with freedom. Inquired if she knew my thoughts, and what I was going to relate? Answered, ‘Nay, we only know what we perceive and hear; we cannot see the heart.’ Then I rehearsed the penitent words of the man she had come up to denounce, and the satisfaction he would perform. Then said she, ‘Peace in our midst.’ I went through the proper forms of dismissal, and fulfilled all as it was set down and written in my memoranda; and then, with certain fixed rites, I did dismiss that troubled ghost, until she peacefully withdrew, gliding towards the west. Neither did she ever afterwards appear, but was allayed until she shall come in her second flesh to the valley of Armageddon on the last day.”

These quaint and curious details from the “diurnal” of a simple-hearted clergyman of the seventeenth century appear to betoken his personal persuasion of the truth of what he saw and said, although the statements are strongly tinged with what some may term the superstition, and others the excessive belief, of those times. It is a singular fact, however, that the canon which authorises exorcism under episcopal licence, is still a part of the ecclesiastical law of the Anglican Church, although it might have a singular effect on the nerves of certain of our bishops9 if their clergy were to resort to them for the faculty which Parson Rudall obtained. The general facts stated in his diary are to this day matters of belief in that neighbourhood; and it had been always accounted a strong proof of the veracity of the Parson and the Ghost, that the plague fatal to so many thousands, did break out in London at the close of that very year. We may well excuse a triumphant entry, on a subsequent page of the “diurnal,” with the date of July 10, 1665: “How sorely must the infidels and heretics of this generation be dismayed when they know that this Black Death, which is now swallowing its thousands in the streets of the great city, was foretold six months agone, under the exorcisms of a country minister, by a visible and suppliant ghost! And what pleasures and improvements do such deny themselves who scorn and avoid all opportunity of intercourse with souls separate, and the spirits, glad and sorrowful, which inhabit the unseen world!”
_______________________
All this is singularly applicable to Hawker himself.
2 John Ruddle, or Rudall, A.M., was instituted Vicar of St. Mary Magdalene, Launceston, on Christmas Day, 1663, on which day he began his ministry. He is entered in the Visitation Book of 1665 as vicar, and in that of 1692 as curate. He became a prebendary of Exeter. On July 15, 1671, he married Mary Bolitho, a widow. He was buried on January 22, 1698.
3 In his footnote, concerning the original manuscript of the 'diurnal' Byles refers the reader to Appendix H at the back of the book, the relevant contents of which I shall explain here. In the 1903 edition of Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall, Byles doubted the existence of the original account written by Ruddle (or Rudall), but by the time the 1908 edition came out he had received information that suggested such a document had existed. According to Byles' appendix, a copy of Ruddle's account, dated 1730, belonged to a descendant of the parson, and it had been reproduced in the Launceston Weekly News in 1895. Also, a second manuscript existed, named Hartshorne after its owner. One Rev. William Iago of Bodmin had examined the two manuscripts and compared them. In the main, the contents of these two documents and the version in Gilbert’s Historical Survey of Cornwall were the same.
4 See Vivian’s “Visitation of Cornwall,” p. 148.
5 For the pedigree of the family of Bligh, of Botathen, see Vivian’s “Visitation of Cornwall,” p. 38. William Bligh, baptized May 18, 1657, was the son of William, who was baptized June 9, 1633, and was, therefore, only thirty-two in 1665. According to ancestries given by Carew and Gilbert, it is probable that the Earls of Darnley are descended from the Blighs of Botathen.
6 In the old MS. from which the story is taken [see note 3 above] the initials "D.D." only are given, and young Eliot describes her as "a neighbour here to my father." This name is said to be wrong. Various alternatives, Dingle, Dingley, Durant, and Derrant, have been suggested.
7 The pentacle of Solomon. ‘This was the five-angled figure which was engraved on an emerald, and wherewith he ruled the demons.’
8 Compare the lines on Merlin in “The Quest of the Sangraal”—
“He raised his prophet staff: that runic rod,
The stem of Igdrasil—the crutch of Raun,”
to which Hawker appends the following note: “Ingdrasil, the mystic tree, the ask of the Keltic ritual. The Rain, or Rowan, is also the asj of the mountain, another magic wood of the northern nations.”
9 Hawker was quite capable of submitting a poser of this kind to his own bishop, Dr. Phillpotts. It is on record that he once exorcised a rebellious vestry, but whether he obtained the bishop’s licence in this case is not stated.

Books and Bench Ends ~ A Visit to Morwenstow Church

My husband and I paid another visit to Morwenstow in North Cornwall a few days ago, and, in addition to wandering all around taking in the beautiful scenery, we visited The Church of St Morwenna and St John the Baptist. 

Knowing that we intended to visit the church, I took Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall by Robert Stephen Hawker, vicar of Morwenstow from 1834. My copy is the 1908 edition (published by John Lane, The Bodley Head), the cloth cover of which is decorated in relief with designs taken from sections of the woodwork within Hawker's church, and we decided to go and find the original carvings. Inside the book, in the list of illustrations, they are described thus:

'The Panel Design on the Front Cover represents a BENCH END in Morwenstow Church; that of the Border is the VINE CARVING of the roof.'

Well, we went looking for the bench end first, and there are a lot of them in the church, all beautifully carved. Though, for the most part, they feature the same elements, the arrangement of these—their positioning and combination, the choice of border around them, etc.—and the nature of hand carving itself means that they're all very individual. The elements included on the cover of Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall are distinctive, and we looked all over the place without finding the right bench. We came across a very similar floral motif on one bench end (the one where the church warden sits), without the top curling leaf and with a different enclosure (see the photo above). And then we found it! If you go into the church, head for the central aisle, turn to face the front of the church, and proceed to the third bench on your right (I hope that makes sense), you will find the lovely carving that inspired the central panel of the book cover (see photos below).



Next, we looked for the border carving. If you want to see this one, simply head for the lectern (where the light is better for roof searching) and raise your eyes to heaven. It's way up high, and I didn't expect my photograph of it to turn out, but it does show the vine and leaf design (which you can compare with the book cover in the first photo above).

The illustration list in Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall makes no mention of the design on the spine of the book, but it is very similar to the pattern carved down the edge of this bench:

Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall is one of three volumes published with this lovely cover design; the other two are The Life and Letters of R. S. Hawker (1906) and Cornish Ballads and Other Poems (1904).

In case you've not read anything else on this blog and don't know why I am interested in R. S. Hawker and Morwenstow, I shall tell you. While researching Charlotte and Gratiana Chanter (the wife and daughter of the vicar of Ilfracombe), I found out that the Chanters were staying at Morwenstow when Charlotte worked on Over the Cliffs. Gratiana thought Hawker kind and hospitable, and her father spent quite a bit of time with him. Hawker was also a friend of Charlotte's brother, Charles Kingsley, author of The Water Babies and Westward Ho!

Curiosity took me to Morwenstow, then I read ‘The Botathen Ghost’, possibly Hawker's best known prose work (which is included in Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall), and one thing led to another.

My next blog post, which I shall add not long after I publish this one, will include the entire text of 'The Botathen Ghost'.

Saturday, 2 August 2025

A Phantasm of the Dead: The Experience of E. Lea Wilson's Aunt

As I mentioned in my previous post, I intend to go on researching Emma Lea Wilson. In part, it's because I'm hoping to uncover another story by her, but it's mainly because of something that was sandwiched between the pages of my copy of The Vanishing Hand.

I really love finding odd bits of paper ephemera inside books... train tickets, receipts, newspaper clippings, and notes from previous owners. Usually, I find receipts and clippings of book reviews, but every now and then I find treasure, which was the case with The Vanishing Hand. Tucked between two of its pages was a note containing some intriguing information about the book's contents; according to the note's writer (who knew people who'd known Emma) the stories were in part true. I spent a fair bit of time looking into the histories of Emma's family members as a result. And I'm surprised, given her penchant for writing about the events in her relatives' lives, that Emma never wrote an actual ghost story. But perhaps she did, and we've not found it yet (I live in hope).

Henry Bacchus and his wife, Isabella—Emma's uncle and aunt—were visiting Cheltenham in 1868 when the latter saw a ghost. The account of Isabella's experience was reported in the Society for Psychical Research's Proceedings (vol. 5, March 1889, pp. 422-426) and then included in F. W. H. Myers' Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death in 1903 (pp. 34-36). What follows is taken in its entirety from the latter.

*          *          *          *          *          *

The account is given by Mrs. Bacchus, of Sherbourne Villa, Leamington.

August 1886.
On Saturday, October 18th [really 24th], we left some friends (the Marquis and Madame de Lys) with whom we had been staying at Malvern Wells, and went to Cheltenham. The reason for going to Cheltenham was that a brother-in-law of my husband, Mr. George Copeland, was living there. He was a great invalid, suffering from paralysis and quite unable to move, but in full mental vigour, so his friends were anxious to see him as often as possible to relieve the dreariness of his long illness, and we did not like to be so near without paying him a visit. We knew that he had friends staying in the house at the time, so determined to go to Cheltenham without letting him know, to take lodgings near, and then tell him we had done so, that he might not feel he ought to invite us to his house. We soon found some rooms in York Terrace, close to Bay’s Hill, Mr. Copeland’s house. After we had taken the rooms—the usual lodging-house kind—drawing-room and bedroom at the back, and were going out, we noticed some medicine bottles on the hall table, asked if any one were ill in the house, and were told that an old lady, a Mrs. R., and her daughter were in the dining-room, that Mrs. R. had been ill for some time, that her illness was not serious and that there was no immediate danger of her dying; in fact, it was made quite light of, and we thought no more about it. We just mentioned in the course of the evening the name of the people lodging in the same house, and Mr. Copeland said he knew who Mrs. R. was; she was the widow of a physician who formerly practised in Cheltenham, that one of her daughters was married to a master of the College, a Mr. N. Then I remembered having seen Mrs. N. at a garden party at Dr. Barry’s the year before, and had noticed her talking to Mrs. Barry, and thought her very pretty. This was all I knew or ever heard of the people. On Sunday morning, when I came into the drawing-room for breakfast, I thought my husband looked a little uncomfortable; however, he said nothing till I had finished breakfast, then asked, “Did you hear a noise of a chair in the hall a little while ago? The old lady downstairs died in her chair last night, and they were wheeling her into the bedroom at the back.” I was very uncomfortable and frightened; I had never been in a house with any one dead before, and I wanted to go, and several friends who heard of it asked me to stay with them, but my husband did not wish to move. He said it was a great deal of trouble, was really foolish of me to wish it, that he did not like moving on Sunday, also that he did not think it right or kind to go away because some one had died, that we should think it unkind if the case had been our own, and other people had rushed off in a hurry; so we decided to stay. I spent the day with my brother-in-law and nieces, and only returned to the lodgings in time to go to bed. I went to sleep quickly as usual, but woke, I suppose, in the middle of the night, not frightened by any noise, and for no reason, and saw distinctly at the foot of the bed an old gentleman with a round rosy face, smiling, his hat in his hand, dressed in an old-fashioned coat (blue) with brass buttons, light waistcoat, and trousers. The longer I looked at him the more distinctly I saw every feature and particular of his dress, &c. I did not feel much frightened, and after a time shut my eyes for a minute or two, and when I looked again the old gentleman was gone. After a time I went to sleep, and in the morning, while dressing, made up my mind that I would say nothing of what I had seen till I saw one of my nieces, and would then describe the old gentleman, and ask if Dr. R. could be like him, although the idea seemed absurd. I met my niece, Mary Copeland (now Mrs. Brandling), coming out of church, and said, “Was Dr. R. like an old gentleman with a round rosy face,” &c., &c., describing what I had seen. She stopped at once on the pavement, looking astonished. “Who could have told you, aunt? We always said he looked more like a country farmer than a doctor, and how odd it was that such a common-looking man should have had such pretty daughters.”

This is an exact account of what I saw. I am quite sure I should know the old gentleman again, his face is clearly before me when I think of it now, as at the time Miss de Lys had a letter from me with the story, and sent it to a relation in France; she heard me tell it again some years after, and said there was no variation whatever in it. My two nieces are still living, and can remember exactly everything that happened as I told it to them. Of course I cannot explain it in any way; the old lady who was dead was in the room directly under the one I was sleeping in. The part of the whole thing that surprised me the most was, that I was so very little frightened as to be able to sleep afterwards, and did not wish to disturb any one else.

Mr. Bacchus writes:—

LEAMINGTON, September 27th, 1886.
I have read my wife’s account of what happened at Cheltenham when we were staying there in October 1868; it is exactly what she told me at the time, and I remember it all perfectly, also her telling my nieces about it in the morning.
HENRY BACCHUS.

In answer to further questions, Mrs. Bacchus replied as follows:—

September 4th, 1886.
(1) I have never seen anything of the kind before or since.
(2) I gave the date from memory. The day was Saturday, and it was Sunday night, or early on Monday morning, that I saw Dr. R.
(3) I do not remember the number in York Terrace; probably the Times of October 1868 would give Mrs. R.’s death and where it took place. [The Times gives the death at 7 York Terrace, Sunday, October 25th, 1868.]
(4) The letter to Miss de Lys cannot be found; all my letters to her were burnt after she died in 1883.
(5) Mr. Bacchus and Mrs. Henry Berkeley have given their account. Mrs. Brandling has not yet written.
(6) I am quite sure I never saw any picture of any kind of Dr. R.
(7) I do not know when he died; probably three or four years before I saw him. His death was spoken of in that way. I can find out if necessary from an old servant of Mr. Copeland’s who lives at Cheltenham, and who would remember him, and be able to inquire.
(8) I do not remember anything about the light, if there was a night-light in the room or not; I think not. When I say, “do not remember,” I mean that being asked puzzles me; my impression of the whole thing is that it was like a magic lantern, all dark round, and the figure, colour, and clothes quite light and bright. I always see the whole thing when I speak of it.
ISABELLA BACCHUS.

Statements were also obtained from Mrs. Berkeley and Mrs. Brandling, nieces of Mrs. Bacchus, confirming her recollection that she had described the details of the apparition to them the next morning, and that it closely resembled Dr. R., as they remembered him. These statements are printed in full in the Proceedings.

Mr. R. died (as Mrs. Bacchus ascertained for us), August 30th, 1865.

*          *          *          *          *          *

I'm sure that Emma could have made something of her aunt's story. Well, maybe she did but didn't publish the results, or perhaps the story is out there somewhere waiting to be rediscovered. As I said in my last post, if you happen to come across anything written by her please do get in touch.

Friday, 30 May 2025

Book News ~ The Vanishing Hand by E. Lea Wilson

I said there were two books coming out soon, and here is the second one... The Vanishing Hand by E. Lea Wilson, originally published in 1893 and never republished. Copies of the first edition are, quite literally, as rare as hen's teeth. I thought for a time that I'd encountered three out there in the wild (including my own copy), but then I realised that I had seen the same one twice. 

And on the subject of rarity, I have managed to find only one story by Miss Wilson aside from the ones included in this volume, and there doesn't seem to be a surviving copy of it. I intend to go on with researching this author, so if you, dear readers, do ever come across anything written by this lady, I would be extremely grateful if you would drop me a line (via the contact page on the Nezu Press website). Ta! 

Anyway, here's the blurb, etc.:

The Vanishing Hand was published for private circulation in 1893, when its author, Emma Lea Wilson, was sixty-four years old. It contains the novelette ‘The Vanishing Hand’, the novella ‘A Clever Trick’, and the short story ‘An Authentic Story of a Dog’. The title story is a criminous tale about strange nocturnal goings on at isolated Crighton Manor. Young Alice Taylor thinks she’s seen a ghost when a hand appears at her bedroom door and then fades away before her very eyes, so she enlists the help of ‘Aunt Lucy’ to solve the mystery. ‘A Clever Trick’ is the story of two stepsisters who fall prey to a wicked plan hatched by a devious stepmother. And the third tale is about a stray dog, a true ‘cur of low degree’, who befriends the female narrator of the story in order to avoid being stoned. The tales are clever and entertaining… and they are made all the more interesting by the fact that the contents were in part true. A very limited number of copies of The Vanishing Hand were produced, only a few remain in existence, and it has never been republished. This new edition includes an 18-page biographical essay by Gina R. Collia: “E. Lea Wilson: ‘Eccentric Spinster and First-Rate Storyteller’ ”.

Published: 30 June 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-917113-11-3.
Case laminate hardback, 22.86mm x 15.24cm (6" x 9"), 146 pages.

The book is available to pre-order from the Nezu Press store (please click here); global shipping is available. Alternatively, it will be available from the usual online retailers soon, and you can order it from bricks-and-mortar stores.