Helen Duncan: Maritime criminal or witch hunt victim?

Any of us who clash with the social norm are typically branded ‘different’. However, what makes medium Helen Duncan – born in Callander, Scotland on November 25, 1897 – truly different from society’s norm remains her rapacity. Duncan didn’t gain the moniker “Hellish Nell” for catastrophic rearranging of flower displays or feverish church-going.

Instead, what Helen Duncan took forward was far more ungodly. She broke society’s moral code, risked countless lives as a wartime whistleblower, profited from grieving naval families, and gained eternal infamy as the last person imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act of 1735.

Yet, spinning the situation on its head, Helen Duncan – perhaps inadvertently – instigated changes to naval regulations, an overhaul of court procedure, repealed the barbaric Witchcraft Act and brought comfort to those grieving for lost souls; aspects that have helped underpin modern society. And that’s not to say that Helen Duncan was guilty of those crimes, for which she was put on trial during WWII.

There's evidence out there that contradicts her villainous role in Britain's wartime hysteria, where her selection as a scapegoat for military malpractice still rages as a point of contention.

Convicted of falsely claiming to procure spirits and talking to those lost at sea, the claim of Witchcraft was denounced by many as a thinly veiled court-martial. Upon the judge’s gavel call, where he dished out nine months behind bars for her actions, Duncan cried out:

“I have done nothing wrong; is there a God?”

Perhaps she was innocent. Perhaps Duncan simply went against the social norms expected of women during that time, doing something un-feminine, unmotherly and unconventional; making herself the centre of attention for financial gain.

As feminine history has become a rabid case of ‘hunt the heroine’, showcasing angelic and subjugated aspects while ignoring the real story, complicated characters – such as Helen Duncan – have largely been written out of the valiant female narrative (also known as Herstory) by woke-spouting biographers.

Although Duncan passed to the spirits on December 6, 1956, leaving a legacy that revolves around fraudulent 'witchcraft', support for her posthumous pardon continues to build. The Scottish Parliament has so far rejected the results of three petitions – 2001, 2008 and 2012 – but Duncan’s descendants and supporters remain unperturbed in their fight for justice.

So, an unfortunate victim of her time as the last witch in Great Britain, or a deceiver driven by avarice, who put the security of our nation at risk? It's time to examine the full story.

Helen Duncan: Villain?

During the Second World War, mediums enjoyed thriving business. As mothers lost sons on foreign battlefields, wives lost husbands at sea, and children lost parents to the blitz, offering a spiritual connection to those claimed by war meant one thing – profit.

One such medium drew the attention of British authorities when, during a séance, Duncan revealed details about a hushed-up naval disaster that she should not have known about. The concurrent headlines showcased an effort from the British authorities to keep Helen Duncan quiet, yet instead, it brought widescale attention to the matter.

Winston Churchill (who was supposedly one of her clients) even became involved, although he complained that the court charge masqueraded as “obsolete tomfoolery”. Churchill demanded to know “why the Witchcraft Act, of 1735, was used in a modern Court of Justice?”

To understand the matter, you’ve got to look at the naval disaster that UK forces kept from the public – a massive feat when you consider that over 860 people perished. The sinking of HMS Barham on the afternoon of November 1941 cast a sorrowful and demoralizing shadow across military operations, especially as HMS Barham’s final minutes were so agonisingly violent.

Following a cataclysmic U-boat attack, HMS Barham capsized to port within four minutes. Laying flat on her side, the warship’s ammunition storage area (also known as the magazine) caught fire and exploded, obliterating the ship and effectively disintegrating scores of young sailors.

Debris soared high into the air, with the mangled wreck taking hundreds of souls to the Mediterranean depths, scattered off the coast of Sid Barrani, Egypt. To conceal Barham’s sinking from German authorities, and also to protect British morale during a time when Great Britain was very much on its own, the Board of Admiralty decided to censor all news of Barham’s gnarly end.

The War Office took several weeks to notify each fatality’s next of kin, and even then, the notification letters included a direct warning not to discuss the loss of HMS Barham with anyone – except close relatives – to ensure “the event which led to the loss of your husband's life should not find its way to the enemy until such time as it is announced officially...”

Only a matter of days following the destruction of HMS Barham, Helen Duncan held a séance in Portsmouth, during which she proclaimed that the spiritual materialization of a perished sailor told her that HMS Barham had been sunk.

Proof that Duncan could, indeed, contact the realm beyond? Well, the Navy doesn’t subscribe to such fantasy, and as the information about Barham was still masked by strict confidence, they took an interest in Duncan’s activities – especially as she had previous form as a fraudster. There had clearly been a security leak, and the Scottish medium would need to spill the beans.

Helen Duncan: Britain’s last witch

Having developed from a humble clairvoyant into a physical medium by 1926, Duncan offered regular séances under the pretence that she could produce ectoplasm from her mouth, and therefore permit spirits of recently deceased people to materialise.

Her dimly-lit séances gained notoriety, leading photographer Harvey Metcalfe to attend a series of these events with his flash camera. What he captured proved that Duncan was fraudulent in her claims. In fact, Metcalfe’s evidence revealed that Duncan’s famed spirit guide – known as “Peggy” – was made from papier-mâché and newspaper, draped in an old sheet.

A further investigation by LSA (London Spiritualist Alliance) found that her ectoplasm was a clunky blend of cheesecloth, egg white, and toilet paper. A later examination by psychical researcher Harry Price discovered similar results. Price then paid Duncan £50 (the equivalent of roughly £2800 by modern inflation) to conduct a program of test séances, during which Duncan became violent and had to be restrained by her husband, despite having punched him in the face.

Researchers, fellow mediums and the British media pronounced her “whole performance fraudulent”, but that didn’t stop an ever-growing audience; until a conviction for fraudulent mediumship at the Edinburgh Sheriff Court on May 11, 1933.

It was inevitable then, with such a colourful mantra, that the Navy would investigate Helen Duncan’s knowledge regarding HMS Banham. Official commentary about the sinking wasn’t made public until January 1942, creating a difference in opinion between senior officers. Was Helen Duncan a true medium and victim of bad press? Or did she need silencing, for the good of the nation? Time to start a good ol' witch hunt...

Prior to her trial in 1944, two lieutenants were among Duncan’s participants during a séance. One Lieutenant by the name of Worth was highly unimpressed when a white cloth figure ‘appeared’ from behind the curtains and claimed to be his aunt. The Lieutenant pointed out that he had no deceased aunts, much to Duncan’s panic.

During the same sitting at Duncan’s home in Edinburgh, another ‘guide’ appeared, this time claiming to be the Lieutenant’s sister; until Worth expressed that his sister was alive and well. Worth was so disgusted with proceedings that he informed the police, who later arrested the medium as she addressed her audience while pretending to be a white-shrouded manifestation. It all sounds like a Monty Python death sketch, but the laughs soon dried up.

Duncan’s trial for witchcraft aroused widespread controversy and wild media interest. Throughout the encroaching exhaustion of war, Duncan’s court proceedings brought a cause celebre to the dishevelled ruins of Blitz-bombed London. Her followers contended that her imprisonment was at the behest of superstitious military intelligence officers, concerned that her medium talents could leak further military secrets; including plans for D-Day.

After a much-publicised tribunal, it was established that Duncan could easily have established the fate of HMS Barham purely from word of mouth, and that she boasted of no genuine psychic powers.

The warship’s loss naturally found footing in public knowledge very quickly, with letters of condolence sent to more than 860 families, each of which would have informed close friends and family. Estimations claim that over 20,000 people therefore knew about the sinking before official word was given in 1942. Hardly a closely guarded secret, Duncan picked up on the gossip and attempted to turn it into profit. She even had a mock HMS Barham hat-band crafted for her ‘guide’.

Originally arrested under section 4 of the Vagrancy Act 1924, of which was a minor offence tried by magistrates, authorities then cast their eye across section 4 of the Witchcraft Act 1735 – concerning ‘fraudulent spiritual activity’.

There were seven counts of unlawfulness, two of conspiracy to contravene the Witchcraft Act, two of obtaining money by false pretences, and three of the common law offence of public mischief. The real moral code broken, however, was exploiting the recently bereaved; something that she never lived down.

Sentenced to nine months at His Majesty’s pleasure, Helen Duncan is widely recognised as the last person to suffer under the Witchcraft Act 1735. Once released from prison, Duncan made a public promise to halt conducting her séances. However, she was arrested again for violating her promise in 1956, after which she shortly passed away.

Even her death remains shrouded in witchcraft-sponsored myth, with her followers explaining that the police raided Duncan’s Edinburgh home during her connection with the spirit world, which caused ectoplasm to violently snap back into her body – effectively killing her.

However, delving into medical records of the time, one can identify a long history of poor health. She spent a decade suffering from obesity and could only move in gentle increments courtesy of strains on her heart.

Helen Duncan: Heroine?

Always look at both sides of the story. Helen Duncan’s legacy may be complicated, and society may have placed her in the status chamber as a profiteering fraudster, but lesser-known aspects of her saga paint a different picture - with some surprising outcomes.

Courtesy of the investigation into her knowledge of HMS Barham, a leak was detected coming from a secretary for the First Sea Lord. They had been a tad indiscreet and told of Barham’s misfortune to Professor Michael Postan, who held a post in the Ministry of Economic Warfare. Postan had then inadvertently spread this information, although he was not arrested. This discovery caused the Navy to tighten its procedures for future security.

Modern historical accounts about that era also ignore Jane Rebecca Yorke of Forest Gate in east London. Helen Duncan may have gained the legacy as Britain’s last witch, but Yorke was also convicted at the time on seven counts of “pretending…to cause the spirits of deceased persons to be present”.

We can therefore state that Duncan was not the only one accused of witchcraft (even if fraudulent) during a time when superstition ran rife and wartime insecurity led to common hysteria. The Scottish medium simply became the high-profile face of the fashionable witch hunt.

It was largely Duncan’s mass following, with assistance from the agency of Labour MP Thomas Brooks, that repealed Great Britain’s Witchcraft Act 1735. The last batch of Witchcraft trials certainly influenced the succeeding Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951, which in turn was repealed in May 2008 – giving way to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. Duncan effectively - although perhaps unwittingly - brought about radical change to British society, even if such merit went undetected for several decades.

So, in a nutshell, hero or villain?
Profiteering fraud master, or compassionate medium?
A victim of her time, or a deserving inmate?

We’ve presented the evidence. That’s for you to decide.