John Palmer, born in 1742, was an actor of the stage. Often referred to as 'Plausible Jack',
his career was, shall we say... inconsistent. At times he was lauded for his performances,
while at other times - usually by the stage managers and people responsible
for paying his wage - he was criticized for his lack of commitment to the art.
He was known for occasionally not showing up for performances, using a range of excuses
persuasive arguments, and downright lies. The tenor Michael Kelly once congratulated John
Palmer on being the only man in the world whose wife bore him two children in as many months.
Although a few people in high places in the world of theater did not value his talents,
Palmer was nonetheless popular enough with the paying public.
1798 was a tragic time for the london-based actor. With work having dried up,
he was left homeless and even spent some time in Surrey Gaol as a, quote, "rogue and vagabond".
He was also said to be suffering from the recent deaths of his wife and son.
However, he was determined to return to the stage. It was August of 1798, and Palmer had
travelled from London to Liverpool to appear in August von Kotzebue's play The Stranger,
also known as Mysanthropy and Repentance. He was said to be suffering considerably from his
recent losses, but nonetheless, he took to the stage in Liverpool on the evening of August 2nd.
It was during act 4 of the play that Palmer's character spoke of his children. He uttered the
words "I left them at a town hard by". No sooner had he delivered the line,
the color drew away from John Palmer's face. He staggered, attempted to proceed, and then
collapsed. The audience believed that it was part of the act; that is until his lifeless body was
taken from the stage. Although his death came at a time when he appeared to have few people
who cared, there was one close friend in London who he had turned to for shelter.
His name was Mr. Richardson, owner of the Richardson Good Luck stockbroker company.
Richardson owned a large house in Spring Gardens which he shared with his sister
Mrs. Vernon, her family, and his own assistant; a young man named Mr. Tucker.
The house was split into two living quarters, separated by a single door, and John Palmer
was permitted to use Richardson's half of the house whenever he needed it. At the immediate
time of Palmer's death, the occupants of his new home were obviously oblivious to the tragedy.
That evening Mr. Richardson, on returning home, spoke to his assistant Mr. Tucker, and asked him
if anyone else was home. "No one" Tucker replied. "Mr Palmer was here, but I saw him leave at 10
o'clock". Richardson thought it strange; as far as he knew, John Palmer was in Liverpool. But he
accepted that he was either wrong, or for one reason or another, Palmer had returned early.
Given his recent situation and state of mind, this would hardly have been surprising.
The next morning the subject of John Palmer's presence was raised again.
On hearing this, Mrs. Vernon, looking confusingly at the men, laughed and reminded
them of Palmer's appointment in Liverpool. Young Mr. Tucker insisted that he had
seen Palmer the night before, exiting the house, elaborating that he looked unwell,
and when spoken to, he gave no reply. Mrs. Vernon was so amused by the disagreement that
she wrote to Palmer in care of the Liverpool Theatre Company, with whom he was residing.
It wasn't until two days later that Mr. Richardson received a
letter from Liverpool informing him of the death of his good friend. A death
recorded as happening on the evening of August 2nd at 9:45 pm, precisely 15 minutes before
Mr. Tucker had seen a pale and gaunt looking John Palmer leave the house in Spring Gardens.
Elliott O'Donnell, the famed ghost hunter and author, was a member of the long-running london-based
Ghost Club; a society dedicated to researching paranormal activity. He once stood before the
club and recalled a tale told to him by a london police officer. According to the lawman, he was on
beat one night on Waterloo Bridge, heading across it from the north side, when he heard quickening
footsteps behind him. When he turned around, he was faced with a young well-dressed woman.
She was said to be in a frantic state and implored him to follow her to the north bank.
There was someone there, she said, who desperately needed help.
The officer followed the woman who turned left at the Victoria Embankment towards
Cleopatra's Needle. The officer said it was at that point that he saw another woman as she
stepped onto the short wall next to the landmark. In his opinion, he said, it was obvious that she
was going to jump, so he rushed forward, pulled her back and turned her around.
He was faced with the same young woman who had beckoned him just moments earlier on the bridge.
She was even wearing the same dress. He let go of her, turned around in search
of an explanation from the first woman, but was met with a silent dark street.
After questioning the young lady who he'd just saved, he learned that she had indeed intended
to end her life, but she insisted she was alone that night. According to her, the police officer
was alone too when he approached her, and she hadn't seen anyone else in the vicinity.
Now I haven't been able to find an exact date for this story,
but it was featured in Peter Underwood's 1973 book Haunted London.
Elliott O'Donnell, who claimed to have been told the story first hand by the
police officer involved, died in 1965 having been associated with the Ghost Club for many years.
It's true that Cleopatra's Needle has been the site of many a suicide since 1878
when the 15th century obelisk was brought to London from Alexandria, Egypt
following a tragedy-stricken journey that saw the drowning of six men. This led many
to believe that the landmark was cursed and had itself summoned those poor souls to their deaths.
In 1969 an investigation took place at 69 Spencer Grove; a 150-year-old terraced house
in Stoke Newington in the borough of Hackney in north east London. Heading that 1969 investigation
was the then president of the famed Ghost Club, Peter Underwood. The house was a crowded one.
The tenants were Mr. Richard McGhee, his wife, their two daughters Valerie
and Sally who were in their twenties, Sally's husband Richard Strachan, and the
Strachan's two infant children Danny and Elaine. The family had approached Reverend John Robbins,
who was also a member of the Ghost Club, and told him of their experiences. And
in turn it was Reverend Robbins who recommended their case for investigation.
You see, the family had for the last five years, experienced an array of apparently
paranormal activity within the house; from loud disembodied footsteps, knockings, groaning voices
and even inexplicable fires. But it was in 1964 that the 'White Lady', as the family knew her,
was first seen by another daughter of the McGhee's, Mrs. June Rose.
I couldn't find any further details regarding this early alleged encounter,
but it was three years until the White Lady was seen again.
It was september of 1967 when Sally Strachan claimed to have had a rather close encounter
with the spectre. She said, that particular evening after a late night, she made her way to
bed at around the midnight hour. When she entered the room she was faced with what she described as
'an apparition of a woman in victorian dress' stood in the centre of the room. She recalled
that the woman had a bonnet-like headdress and dark, wide spaces in place of her eyes.
According to the family's account, when Sally ran from the room and lost consciousness, her
elder sister June, who was visiting the family, entered the room and saw the same apparition.
June ran from the room in hysterics, and when her father Richard McGhee went to investigate,
all that remained, they said, were smoke-like wisps that floated towards the ceiling and then
dispersed. Following this incredible account which the family swore was absolutely true,
a small lamp in the house caught fire and a wardrobe inexplicably fell over.
In the days that followed, the phantom woman was seen by Sally Strachan again. Her daughter Elaine,
who was only three years old at the time, told her mother that there was a lady
in the bedroom who lived in the wardrobe. There were three wardrobes in the Strachan
bedroom, and it was noticed that knocking sounds emanated from the one in the corner of the room.
Mr. McGhee claims that he was in the bedroom one day when the same wardrobe jolted towards
him several times. It was as if the piece of furniture was bearing down on him, he said.
When it came to rest with enough force that one door swung open, he pushed back and put
his hand inside. He said it felt as if he was touching the inside of a refrigerator.
The family was so dismayed by the experiences they'd had at
69 Spencer Grove, that on more than one occasion they spent the night in the back garden,
too afraid to re-enter the house. When the appeal was made to the Ghost Club to investigate,
the current president Peter Underwood, his wife, the club's chairman Tom Perrett and Reverend John
Robbins all attended and listened to the accounts firsthand. During an initial tour of the home,
they were shown the wardrobe from which the noises had been heard.
Underwood suggested that they try to tempt the entity out. He opened the door, made three loud
knocks on the shelf, closed the door again and left the room with the rest of the group.
As they began
to descend the stairs, three clear and distinct knocks were heard coming from the closed bedroom.
Some weeks later the same wardrobe inexplicably caught fire; a fire which then spread to the bed.
It was this dangerous event that finally drove the family out of the house without giving notice.
The matter was even brought before a judge, as they were in breach of their tenancy agreement
and in rental arrears. A rent assessment committee suggested that the family had
simply been negligent and were responsible for the fires. However, after all the testimony was heard,
including that given by the ghost club members, judge Lord Parker was not so quick to dismiss the
family's claims, and was prepared to accept that they had been the victims of a malevolent force.
He reduced the outstanding rent from six pounds a week to five shillings a week, saying:
as is so often the case with hauntings, the mysteries of the McGhee-Strachan
household in Stoke Newington were never fully understood. The accounts given by the families
were descriptive and chilling, but only they knew whether or not they were true. 69 Spencer
Grove in Stoke Newington, along with many of the neighboring houses, has since been demolished.
This is the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey in central London. Today the building
on the corner is the Old Bailey criminal courts. Up until 1902 this corner was the site of Newgate
Prison which was opened in 1769. During the prison's operation, the Old Bailey's courtrooms
were housed next to the prison building, whereas now the entire building houses the criminal court.
Notice the Viaduct Tavern to the left which still operates today. Countless infamous criminals have
passed through here over the centuries, either as prisoners or to stand trial. Some were executed
here too, because within Newgate Prison there once stood a hangman's noose and gallows.
One of the people tried and executed here was the infamous baby farmer, Amelia Elizabeth Dyer.
Over the course of 30 years Amelia Dyer fostered numerous unwanted children. In exchange for money
and clothing for the child, she promised them a happy and bright future. After several apparently
law abiding years, it was revealed in 1879 that numerous children had died in her care.
Amelia Dyer's eventual downfall came when the corpse of infant Helena Fry was discovered in
a bag floating on the River Thames in Reading
by a bargeman named Charles Humphries on March 30th, 1869.
In a highly publicized trial, and one of the most infamous of the Victorian period, she was found
guilty of murder and hanged on June 10th, 1896. After a lengthy posthumous investigation it's
thought that Dyer could have been responsible for the deaths of as many as 400 children.
Six years after the execution of Amelia Dyer, Newgate Prison finally closed its doors.
During the last week of its operation in 1902, one of the chief prison warders reported an
incident within the confines of the so-called Womens' Felons Yard. While patrolling one of
the buildings, he said he thought he saw someone moving around in the yard outside.
When he peered through the window he claims to have seen the figure of a woman in the darkness.
He said that as he watched her, she turned in his direction. That's when he recognised
her face. He said he swore it was the face of Amelia Dyer. It has been suggested that
this could have been a hallucination brought on by his subconscious mind once he remembered
the words Amelia Dyer had spoken to him six years earlier as she was led to the gallows.
I'm not sure if this part of the story was just added for extra intrigue, but it has been
recorded that the same prison warder was present at Amelia Dyer's trial, and had escorted her out
of the courtroom following sentencing. As she left the court she allegedly turned to him and said:
"I shall see you again, Sir". What the warder experienced that night in the former Womens'
Felons Yard in 1902 may have been due to an overactive imagination, but it can't be ignored
that around the same time of the alleged sighting, there had been a number of reports from other
prison workers of a female apparition walking through the now disused women's yard. Disused,
because the female prisoners by this time were being housed at Pentonville Prison in Islington.
Bruce Castle in Tottenham is a former Elizabethan manor house.
One of the oldest surviving brick houses in England, it has now been restored as a museum.
The property, which was once owned by Rowland Hill, a founder of the penny postal system,
is said to be haunted by a ghost that is said to appear - or at least make
her presence known - on the 3rd of November every year.
The haunting's genesis lies in the 17th century, for on that date in 1680,
Lady Constantia Coleraine threw herself from the parapet. Some say she did
it in desperation after being locked away in a
small room over the central porch by her husband, Henry Coleraine,
because he was a jealous man and didn't want her to have contact with any other men.
Others say she did it because of an ongoing relationship between her husband
and Sarah Seymour, the Duchess of Somerset; a woman whom Henry would later marry.
On November 3rd 1680, Lady Coleraine is reported to have forced her way out of the confines
of the tower and made her way to the parapet, screaming hysterically with her baby in her arms
before jumping to their deaths. Legend has it that every November 3rd thereafter,
Lady Coleraine will appear again on the parapet accompanied by echoes of her screams.
Curiously though, despite the legend of the annual manifestation, the first recorded reference of her
ghost didn't appear until almost 200 years later in an 1858 edition
of the Tottenham and Edmonton Advertiser. it reads:
It's been said that as the years have passed, Lady Coleraine's ghost has faded, but there are records
of her screams being heard into the early 20th century. A curator of the museum named C.H. Rock
recalled a conversation he'd had in the 1960s with a 73 year old woman who used to live close to the
castle as a child. She told him that as a child she'd heard Lady Coleraine's scream many times.
The building has since been repurposed several times, opening as a museum in 1906.
In 1949 C.H. Rock joined seven men from a historical research group known as the
Edmonton Hundred in an all-night vigil on the anniversary of Lady Coleraine's fateful jump.
According to London's Daily Herald, dated October 31st 1949, Mr. Rock was not at all a
believer. At the time he was quoted to have said:
No phantom appeared that night, nor were screams heard, but some members of the
research team claimed to have heard disembodied footsteps coming from the empty staircase.
Mr. Rock also noted that on that night, the tower's
clock failed to strike the hour of one 'o clock,
but struck every hour before and after as normal.