Francis Smith stare nervously at the three Book of Judges in London ’s independent deplorable courthouse . Smith , a meek - mannered excise tax collector , had no known criminal history and sure no intention to become the centrepiece of one of nineteenth hundred England ’s most unusual murder test . But a week to begin with , Smith had made a criminally dopey mistake : He had shot and kill what he believe to be aghost .
The spectators inside the courthouse sat hushed as the prosecuting attorney and a cross - examiner questioned about half a 12 eyewitnesses . Each mortal had see Smith in the village of Hammersmith ( now a part of London ) the night of the crime , or they had antecedently seen the shade that Smith was zealously hunt . One such eyewitness , William Girdler , the village night - watchman and Smith ’s specter - hunt partner , had not only seen the white - sheeted specter lie in wait across the street — he had chased it .
“ When you follow up on it , ” thecross - examinerasked , “ how did it escape ? ”
“ slip the piece of paper or mesa - cloth off , and then got it over his chief , ” Girdler respond . “ It was just as if his head was in a bag . ”
“ How long had the neighborhood been alarmed with its coming into court ? ”
“ About six weeks or two months . ”
“ Was the alert great and general ? ”
“ Yes , very neat . ”
“ Had considerable maleficence happened from it ? ”
“ Many people were very much frightened . ”
Girdler was tell the verity . The people of Hammersmith had reported see a shade for weeks now , and they were terrify . The specter was verifiably fierce . It lash out men and cleaning woman , and during its two calendar month campaign of molestation and intimidation , it had successfully evaded capture . rumour swirled that it could manifest from graves in an instant , and sink back into the mud just as quickly . At the prison term , the magazineKirby ’s Wonderful and Scientific Museumreportedthat the ghost was “ so clever and nimble in its retreat , that they could never be traced . ”
When Ann Millwood took the stand , the crossbreed - examiner asked if she was familiar with these reports .
“ Yes , I heard great talk of it , ” Millwood explained , “ that sometimes it appeared in a white sheet , and sometimes in a calf - skin frock , with cornet on its head word , and glass eye . ” That was n’t all . The ghost also reportedly took the shape ofNapoleon Bonaparte ; other accounts said that its eyes radiated like glow - worms and that it breathed fire .
It must have been unbelievably difficult for Millwood to describe the shade ’s appearance , peculiarly in front of a public audience . The ghoul she characterized wait nothing like her late pal Thomas , the young man whom Francis Smith had erroneously murdered .
In 19th C Britain , seeing a shade — at least , a person dressed up as one — was not uncommon . ghostwriter personate was something of a furore , with churchyards and cobblestoned alleyways on a regular basis harass by pranksters , louts , and other sheet - wear out hoaxsters who were up to no good .
Historian Owen Davies tracks the root of spectre impersonators in hiswide - ranging book , The Haunted : A Social History of Ghosts , tracing the first reports of fake ghost to the Reformation , when critics of Catholicism accuse the Church of portray the dead to convert agnostic . ( According toone accountby the reformer Erasmus , a non-Christian priest once fastened wax light to a casting of crab and let go of them in a drab graveyard in hope of imitate the lose , winding souls of purgatory . )
But for most ghost imitator , candle - strapped crustacean were unnecessary ; all you involve was a clean sheet . Up until the 19th hundred , the bodies of the poor were n’t bury in coffin but simply enfold in cloth — sometimes the rag of the deathbed — which would be knotted at the header and feet . touch impersonators adopted the white weather sheet as their de facto wardrobe as early as 1584 , when Reginald Scott , a fellow member of parliament and witchery aficionado , write that “ one rogue in a white sheet hath delude [ that is , lead on ] and step many thousands that agency . ” It ’s from this exercise that the trope of a white - sheeted ghost originated .
Seventeenth- and 18th - century Britain are sprinkled with report of phony phantoms . Take Thomas Wilmot , a famed turn and hijacker who once disguise himself as a disembodied spirit to slip money . ( His appearance — chalk - up tegument and a sheet - bound chief — sent a table of gamblers clamber for an exit . Wilmot pocketed the cash they left on the board . ) And by the 1760s , so many lily-white - sheeted pranksters were prowling in cemeteries that annoyed citizens were pay bounties to get rid of them . According to theAnnual Register , one shade in southern Westminster “ struck such little terror into the credulous denizen thereabouts , that those who could not be brought to believe it a ghost , entered into a subscription , to give five guinea fowl to the mortal , who would seize him . ”
These caper had consequences . In 1792 , a ghost impersonator in Essex spooked a farm - worker channelize a wagon ; the horse jumped , the driver tumbled , and his leg was crushed by one of the wagon ’s wheels . He died from his injuries . Twelve years later , soldier in London ’s St. James ’s Park spotted the specter of a brainless charwoman , an case that authority took very seriously , if only because it was distracting — and reportedly harm — its protection guards . In the 1830s , a ghost imitator was prove for manslaughter because he literally frightened an 81 - year - previous woman to death .
It was dangerous for the so - called specter , too . In 1844 , six men give chase a ghost impersonator and tucker out him so badly that he had to visit the infirmary . In 1888 , a mob of 50 villagers — all armed with sticks — fence a “ ghost ” and only released him after he agreed to donate money to a local infirmary . ( Some ghost - busts start investigator for other reasons : Davies write that , in 1834 , an investigation of an untenanted haunted sign of the zodiac revealed “ nothing more than some boisterous love - maker . ” )
Like many other pastimes in 19th - one C Britain , spectre impersonating was a gendered activity : Women , especially young distaff handmaid , were often restricted to mimicking poltergeist natural process indoors — pink on door , go article of furniture , throw rock at windows — while the sheet - wearing jinks were reserved for new men who , far too often , had scuzzy intentions .
Most accounts of specter impersonate , both advanced and historical , gloss over the fact that men often used their spectral cover to intimidate , harass , sexually violation , and even assault women . In his exact and critical score of ghost impersonators , flavour of an Industrial Age , the historian Jacob Middleton argues that ghost impersonate was not only the domain of juvenile pranksters , but also that of sexual predators . This was made most distressingly well-defined during the 1830s , the stature of hauntings by “ Spring - Heeled Jack . ”
Every day , London ’s women had to contend not only with the unyielding terror of CAD and street harassers , but also with men the closet dubbed “ Monsters , ” menaces who stalk , grabbed , groped , slashed , and stabbed cleaning lady in the breast and buttocks . These criminals were piquerists , masses who took intimate pleasure in piercing the skin of women , and a spate of attack in the 1780s put all of London at unease . In the early 1800s , these barbarian start to take masking by dressing as ghost . Spring - Heeled Jack , called a “ monster in human form , ” was among them : obliterate in back street after sunset , he would try lone women , knock on their doors , and attempt to buck aside their clothes with hooks . Thanks to London ’s sensationalist press , tales of Spring - Heeled Jack would bloat into urban legend .
But even before Spring - Heeled Jack , on a normal evening , the charwoman of Hammersmith were justified in feel worried about stepping outside after dark . Organized constabulary military group were a relatively new melodic theme in Great Britain , and lonely neighborhoods such as Hammersmith were protected by small more than a drift constable or security guard . composition of the Hammersmith ghost compound that anxiousness . ( The community ’s men were n’t much avail . As theMorning Postreported , “ [ The ghost ] was fancy on Monday evening last pursuing a woman , who shriek dreadfully . Although there were four male passengers in the level coach , which turn over at the sentence , not one durst venture to the rescue of the distressed female person . ” ) It was n’t until weeks of flack that bands of topical anesthetic , their venter slop with ale supplied by the near public house , begin taking to the streets to break off the menace .
It was at the intersection of these two lamentable facts that the calamity at Hammersmith unfolded : Francis Smith give way out on January 3 , 1804 to catch a ghost , while Thomas Millwood went out to ensure that his wife , who was walking home alone in the dark , did not meet one .
Thomas Millwood was separate he resembled the Hammersmith ghost . A bricklayer , Millwood break a white jacket , white trouser , and a blanched proscenium , an corps de ballet that frighten away a carriage - riding couple one dark Saturday dark . When the passerby exclaimed to his married woman , “ There goes the shade ! ” Millwood turned and uncorked a few colourful and unprintable words , expect if the man wanted “ a lick in the head . ”
After the incident , a family extremity make Phoebe Fullbrooke implored Millwood to interchange his wardrobe at nighttime . “ Your dress attend white , ” she said . “ implore do put on your great pelage , that you may not consort any danger . ” Millwood maunder something about how he hoped the town ’s vigilance man would catch the ghost , but he overleap to take the advice and continued walk home in his livid oeuvre clothes .
A few night later , Francis Smith and William Girdler proceed ghost search .
Compelled by reports of the ghost ’s vehemence , the men carried firearms . Hammersmith ’s spirit had choked a humankind and the village swirled with rumors that it had even round a pregnant cleaning lady who after died of shock . fit in to one story , the apparition caused “ so much alarm , that every superstitious person in that neighborhood had been filled with the most powerful apprehensions . ” But superstition mattered little . Ghost or not , there was doubtlessly a public threat in Hammersmith , and people wanted it gone . A amplitude of 10 pound would be awarded to anybody who catch it .
That same night , Thomas Millwood stopped at his father ’s house and began chatting with his sister Ann . Sometime between 10 and 11 p.m. , she evoke he leave and escort his wife , who was still in township , back home . “ You had better go , ” Ann say . “ It is dangerous for your married woman to get along home by herself . ” Millwood agreed and maltreat alfresco , break his white bricklayer ’s apparel . He did n’t know that he was walking down the same unlighted lane as Francis Smith and his scattergun .
When Smith spotted the white figure gliding in his direction , he lifted his fowling piece to his shoulder and yelled , “ Damn you , who are you ? Stand , else I ’ll shoot you . ” The air stood silent . He yelled a second meter and stared down the drum . Not hearing any response , Smith fired .
Millwood ’s baby heard the gunshot and hollo for Thomas , but , like Smith , she hear no answer . She later found her brother lying face up on the dirt lane , his cheek stained black with gunpowder , his white-hot clothes stained red .
TheCaledonian Mercuryreported the sad news show later that week:“We have to foretell to the public an outcome , in some of its circumstances so laughable , but in its result so horrific , that we fear if the reader should even laugh with one side of his mouth , he must of necessity outcry with the other . ”
The moment the smell of spent powder hit his nose , Smith knew he ’d made a misapprehension . Millwood had been kill instantly ; the shaft entered his lower left-hand jaw and exited through the back of his cervix . Smith barged into the White Hart pub in visible hurt , mayhap in shock , and wait to be arrested . One week afterwards , he stood run at London ’s Old Bailey courthouse . The panel deliberate for 45 minutes before take back with a sentence of manslaughter .
The three judges rejected the sentence .
“ The Court have no hesitation whatever with regard to the police , ” Justice Rookeexclaimed , “ and therefore the finding of fact must be—‘Guilty of Murder ’ or ‘ a total acquittal from want to grounds . ’ ” In other run-in , the jury could not be wishy - watery . Smith was either shamefaced of execution , or not shamed of murder — the panel needed to decide .
Within moment , Smith was convicted of murder . He was sentenced to hang the next Monday ; his organic structure would be take apart in the name of scientific discipline .
Reports of Smith ’s trial were shocking . As theNewgate Calendartells it , “ When the dreadful parole ‘ shamefaced ! ’ was sound out [ Smith ] sank into a state of stupefaction exceeding despair . ” His touch were likely intensify by the access of John Graham , a Hammersmith cobbler who days to begin with admitted to starting the Hammersmith ghost hoax . ( Graham began impersonating the specter to scare his apprentices , who he complained were fill his children ’s heads with nonsense about ghosts . Unfortunately , his trick appears to have inspired violent copycats to absorb in what theCaledonian Mercurycalled “ frail , perhaps wicked frolic . ” )
In the end , Smith would be lucky . His sentence was sent to His Majesty King George III , who not only delay the capital punishment but eventually yield Smith a full pardon .
The Hammersmith ghost tribulation , however , would obsess England ’s legal organization for almost another two centuries . Smith ’s case would persist a philosophic forefront - scratcher : If somebody commits an number of violence in an effort to stop a crime from occurring — only to take in later that they were misguided and that no criminal offence was being committed — is that somebody still justify in using violence ? Or are they the crook ? British law would not be make room for thisgray areauntil the 1980s .
Meanwhile , the tragedy in Hammersmith failed to deter England ’s many touch impersonators . prankster and pussyfoot alike continued wearing bedsheets in dark cemeteries and alleyways for almost another century . In fact , the ghost of 1803 and 1804 would not be the last specter to haunt the village of Hammersmith . Two decades later , a ghost would come back . But this time , villagers whisper rumour that this haunting was veridical , get by the angry mortal of a snowy - habilitate bricklayer named Thomas Millwood .
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A version of this narrative ran in 2017 ; it has been updated for 2024 .
