Rev'd Dr Helen Hall, Associate Professor NLS https://www.ntu.ac.uk/staff-profiles/law/helen-hall
As he stood in the dock in 1792, waiting to be sentenced for his part in one of the most notorious ghost scams of all time, Richard Parsons may well have been regretting a number of poor life choices. He had let a room in his house to sweethearts who had escaped to London. William Kent had fallen in love with Fanny Lynes, the sister of his late wife. Unfortunately, the law in force at the time did not permit them to marry, so they had run away to London to cohabit out of wedlock. Fanny’s enraged and scandalised family were hot on their tail, making it impossible for them to find respectable accommodation. An apartment in Parson’s squalid home was far from ideal for a gentry couple, but it was a port in a storm. Parsons was an alcoholic and habitually short of funds, and it didn’t take him long to borrow money from his unusually well-heeled lodgers. He failed to make the promised repayment, and when William protested about this, Richard kicked him out, along with the now very pregnant Fanny.
Unsurprisingly, William didn’t take kindly to any of this, and successfully sued Richard for the debt. The saga might have ended there, were it not for a series of unpredictable events. Poor Fanny suddenly died of a small-pox, and strange noises were heard in Richard Parson’s house. Richard told anyone and everyone who would listen that the sounds were being made by the ghost of Fanny, who had clearly been murdered by her evil husband. Unfortunately, a credulous and slightly bored Church of England clergyman heard the gossip, and believed every word. This led to the story getting into print, and gaining far more traction that Richard could ever have dreamed of. For a short time, his house became a tourist attraction, and his young daughter Elizabeth was the focal point of a notorious haunting. Night after night, crowds of people flocked to huddle into her bedroom, and listen to strange knocking and scrapping of the phantom, dubbed “Scratching Fanny” by the press. Visitors included members of the royal family and celebrities like Dr Johnson.
The twice bereaved William was understandably both enraged and utterly distraught, especially since a growing number of people were taking the accusation of murder very seriously. There were many twists and turns in the story, but Elizabeth was eventually caught faking the sounds, having been very obviously coerced into doing so but her father. This did not happen however until after Fanny Lynes had been exhumed, in the presence of poor William, an event which must have been unimaginably distressing. A combination of the physical evidence of smallpox and the discovery of fraud led to the prosecution of Richard, his wife, a female neighbour who had been in on the scam (plus the hapless clergyman and a journalist, who were honest, but deemed culpable for being stupid enough to have assisted in promoting Richard’s cause). They were convicted of conspiracy, effectively for their role in having knowingly or recklessly putting an innocent man at the risk of murder charge with a capital sentence.
It is hard to feel much sympathy for Richard, who seems to have been utterly cynical and self-serving throughout. What is interesting however, is his attempt to use the “voice” of a ghost to make his own voice heard. However irrational his feelings, he clearly considered himself to be deeply wronged, and did not have the financial or social capital to defend the litigation that William brought.
A similar tactic appears to have been used by a much more deserving individual in late 19th century America. Mary Jane Heaster claimed that she had been visited by the ghost of her daughter Zona Shue, who told her that she had been murdered by her husband. She was so persistent in recounting this story that she also succeeded in having the body exhumed. Authorities found that Zona had a broken neck, and bruising from finger marks on her neck. Obviously, this was somewhat embarrassing for the doctor who had certified that Zona had died of natural causes. As a working-class women with little money or education, it would have been difficult for Mary Jane to openly challenge a respectable medical gentleman. The ghost-story provided a means of airing her concerns and obtaining access to justice (although she maintained until her own dying day that she really had seen an apparition of her departed daughter).
Both of these incidents demonstrate the people do take ghost stories seriously, and that like it or not, courts sometimes have to engage with them. Whatever the truth of the spooky goings on, the people involved were very clearly trying to express their grievances in language which made sense to them, and which they believed would be heard. This overarching reality has not changed in the intervening centuries. Individuals will still articulate their experiences in ways that align with their own worldview and perceptions, meaning that authorities need to listen to what is actually being said, regardless of the spiritual or religious backdrop.
Related Readings
Garcia Oliva, J. & Hall, H., “The Trial of the Cock Lane Ghost: Religious Orthodoxy and Social Values in Enlightenment London” 15 Sept 2023 Law & Justice. 190, p. 38 59
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