From fact to folklore, Janet Pereson & the Witches of Wallsend

Tags

Cunning folk, cunning woman, Deleval, Ecclesiastical Courts, England, Janet Pereson, Newcastle, North East, North East Folklore, Sir Francis Blake Deleval, trials, Wallsend, Witchcraft, witches, Witches of Wallsend

The Wallsend Witches, revisited

In anticipation of Halloween I decided to revisit an old post of mine from 2013. Way back when I first started writing this blog I wrote about the fairly obscure local legend of the Wallsend Witches.  A gothic tale of horrible hags, revolting rituals and a dashing Delaval, all played out in the picturesque ruins of Old Holy Cross church, Wallsend.  The tale is found in print in several Victorian Table books and seems to have been oft retold in the eighteenth century by Sir Francis Blake Delaval (1727-1771) of Delaval Hall.

Holy Cross Church, Wallsend.

The gist of the tale is that a scion of the Delaval family was riding home late one night and noticed light emanating from Holy Cross Church.  Upon investigation he came across a band of hags performing a diabolical ritual upon a disinterred corpse.  Brave Delaval then apprehended the ring leader and brought her to trial and to the stake at nearby Seaton Sluice – but not before the accused had tried to make an aerial getaway on some enchanted plates.  For the full version of the tale, originally recounted in Richardson’s Local Table Book of 1838-46 but in this case taken from North-Country Lore and Legend, Monthly Chronicle (April 1888), click here: The Wallsend Witches: a tale for Halloween.

Having initially dismissed the tale as a combination of colourful folklore and florid Victorian Romanticism, I was surprised to come across an actual report of a Wallsend woman accused of witchcraft during the sixteenth century.

the pointing finger

Talismans & Charms used in folk magic.

I first came across this case in A History of Northumberland volume XIII which provides an extract from an earlier source: Depositions and other ecclesiastical proceedings from the courts of Durham,extending from 1311 to the reign of Elizabeth.  After a little digging I managed to get hold of a copy of the depositions, published by the Surtees Society in 1845. Here was discussed the case of one Janet Pereson of Wallsend, accused of witchcraft in about 1570.

Janet Pereson was accused by two people. One, a farmer called Robert Durham of Walshend, aged 72, who said ‘He hath heard saye that Jennet Pereson uses wytchecraft in measuringe of belts to preserve folks frome the farye’.  And the other one Catherine Fenwick, aged 20, the daughter of Constance Fenwick who accused Janet of taking payment for using magical charms to cure a little boy by the name of Benjamin Widdrington. Catherine went on to claim that ‘she knoweth not whether she is a wytche or not’. Despite the possibly malicious intent of the accusations, Janet herself was not accused of practicing malificent magic, rather, the accusations appear to indicate that she was some kind of local cunning woman or wise woman.

Cunning woman or witch?

16th Century image of a witch and her familiars. Via Wikimedia.

While cunning folk would seem to be broadly speaking, forces for good, such ‘white witches’ did not escape censure and in fact their brand of magic, whilst not obviously malevolent in intent, was viewed by many as a threat to the very souls of those who sought their aid.

Title Page of 7 Ed of Malleus Maleficarum. 1520. Via Wikipedia.

In 1487 notorious women-haters Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger wrote of such cunning folk in their infamous book The Malleus Maleficarum:

 although it is quite unlawful… bewitched persons… resort to wise women, by whom they are very frequently cured, and not by priests and exorcists. So experience shows that such cures are affected by the help of devils, which is unlawful to seek

Based on the information provided in the deposition, Janet’s case would seem fall into this category.   The accusation was recorded thus:

The said Pereson wyfe said the child was taken with the fayre, and bad hir [the child’s mother] sent 2 for Southrowninge [south-running] water, and then theis 2 shull not speke by the waye, and that the child shuld be washed in that water, and dib the shirt in the water, and so hand it up on a hedge all that night, and that on the morrow the shirt should be gone and the child shuld recover health – but the shirt was not gone as she said.

Robert Thompson, the Vicar of Benton, had the following to say about Janet:

Dicit that he herd one wedo Archer doughter called Elizabethe Gibson, saye that Jenkyn Person wyfe heled hir mother who was taken with the fayre, and gave her 6d for her payment and that the said Jenkyn Pereson wyfe took 3d of Edmund Thompson for a like matter.

Despite official unease over the practices of cunning men and women, they  were usually tolerated when they were performing helpful actions.  And,  Janet comes across as quite honest – she did not not steal the shirt left out over night (either that, or she really believed the fairies would take it). So what was going on?

Hidden motives

Digging a little deeper, Janet seems to have been accused of witchcraft after her husband, William, and son, Jenkyn, were charged with stealing a horse from Robert Thompson, the Vicar of Benton [1]. Whether any or all of the accusations were true or not, it would seem someone was out to get the entire Pereson family.

Sixteenth century court scene. Source Unknown.

As has been pointed out by many writers on historical witchcraft, witchcraft accusations could often stem from long-standing local disputes or social anxieties, focusing on those seen as a threat to social order, either by virtue of their anti-social behaviour, illness, deformity or poverty.  This element could be a factor in Janet’s case, on initial reading, if the horse theft allegation against William and Jenkyn Pereson was true, it may indicate that they were a troublesome family.  Staying under the radar of officialdom was probably the safest course for a cunning woman, but the allegations against her husband and son could have brought Janet’s practices sharply into focus as well.

Shakespeares three Scottish Witches. Source unknown.

One important factor in Janet’s case can be found in the footnote of the Depositions. The witchcraft  accusations against Janet appears in a series of Exceptions against the witnesses to a tithe Suit relative to the Living of Benton. Tithe disputes were very common in pre-modern England, especially after the Reformation, and hinged over payment of church dues [2]. All the allegations against Janet and her family seem to have arisen as part of this tithe dispute. As Jo Bath points out, Constance, the mother of Katherine Fenwick (Janet’s accuser),  was a the one engaged in this acrimonious dispute with the Pereson family [3] and the Vicar of Benton seemed to have been willing to add his accusations to the pile. Perhaps this dispute, compounded with any other real or imagined anti-social behaviour by the family, was the last straw?  Or, maybe, Constance simply was ready to use any means at her disposal to win the argument, whatever the cost.  The case certainly shows how neighbourhood disputes could easily escalate into allegations of witchcraft.

Janet’s fate

Heron Prison Pit, Black Gate Newcastle. From an original image by Barabbas 312. Wikimedia.

Unfortunately, the texts that I have seen do not provide the outcome of Janet’s case – I would be interested to hear if anyone has this information.  In the Surtees volume, a Janet/Jennet Pearson appears in relation to another case in Dunston in 1586. While differences of spelling were common at the time, it is hard, nevertheless to tell if this is the same woman or simply another with a similar name.

Broadly speaking, in England when cunning folk fell foul of the law, the were usually tried in the Ecclesiastical Courts rather than secular courts.  Allegations of providing charms, love potions, enchantments or even the of finding lost goods, could all wind a local cunning person in such a court, and this is what happened to Janet, as her case is recorded in the Depositions and other ecclesiastical proceedings from the courts of Durham.

The 1563 ‘Act agaynst Conjuracons Inchantments and Witchecraftes’ focused mainly on black magic and offered a penalty of death for anyone that ‘practise or exercise [of] any Witchecrafte Enchantment Charme or Sorcerie, whereby any pson shall happen to bee killed or destroyed’ they would be put to death.’  However, cunning folk were not overlooked and the Act goes on to say:

That yf any pson or psons shall from and after the sayd first daye of June nexte coming, take upon him or them, by Witchecrafte Enchantment Charme or Sorcerie, to tell or decleare in what Place any Treasure of Golde or Sylver shoulde or might bee founde or had in the Earthe or
other secret Places, or where Goodes or Thinges lost or stolen should be founde or becume, or shall use or practise anye Sorcerye Enchantment Charme or Witchcrafte, to this intent to provoke any pson to unlaufull love, or to hurte or destroye any pson in his or her Body, Member or Goodes; that then every suche pson or psons so offending, and being therof laufully convicted, shall for the said offence suffer Imprysonment by the space of One whole yere wthout Bayle.

Janet was tried in or around 1570, and her alleged actions would seem to meet the criteria of the recent legislation.  While the outcome of Janet’s trial was not recorded, it would be possible, that if found guilty, she could have been imprisoned (rather than burned at the stake – the purported fate of the captured Wallsend Witch).  Although it’s worth noting that imprisonment could in itself be a death sentence, due to the dreadful conditions in most prisons at that time.

From Fact to folklore

Contemporary Pamphlet about the North Berwick Witches. C1590. Via Wikimedia.

Having revisited the story of the Wallsend Witches and found in it a grain of historical truth, in that Wallsend did in fact boast at least one real-life alleged Witch, the tale of the Wallsend Witches takes on a new aura.  One in which real historical events evolve over time to become folk-lore – of course it would be hard to prove that Janet Pereson’s case is the ‘true’ origin of this tale. Nevertheless, it is appealing to think it forms the core: that as living memory of her tale faded, it began to incorporate such elements as the fate of the North Berwick Witches (burned at the stake in 1590) along with more fantastical elements of established folklore (such as that witches were thought to be able to use wooden platters to fly).

The story appears to have come down through the ages at first in folk-memory,  then, perhaps, permeating different levels of society though Sir Francis Blake Deleval’s constant retelling, eventually being embellished with the real location of Holy Cross Church, Satanic necromancy and a Delaval as hero, and ultimately being collected as a colourful piece of local lore, by Richardson in his Local Table Book of 1838-46.  

So, it would seem that however florid a tale may become with the telling and re-telling, sometimes there is a kernel of truth in it!!

Sources and notes

All images by Lenora unless otherwise stated.

Bath, Jo, Charmers, Enchanters and Witches: True tales of Magic and Maleficia from the North East [3]

Honeybell, F, Cunning Folk and Wizards In Early Modern England, University of Warwick MA Dissertation, 2010

https://archive.org/stream/TheMalleusMaleficarum/MalleusMaleficarum_djvu.txt

Raine, James, Depositions and other ecclesiastical proceedings from the courts of Durham,extending from 1311 to the reign of Elizabeth Vol 21, published by the Surtees Society, 1845 [1]

http://www.wallsendhistory.btck.co.uk/Campaign/Witches%20at%20Wallsend

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe_Dispute [2]

Body-snatchers; and hints on how to stay buried when you’re dead

Tags

Anatomy Act 1832, Body snatchers, burke and hare, cemetery guns, coffin collars, coffin torpedoes, Mort safes, Newcastle, resurrectionists, Turf Hotel

Having already discussed the perils of Premature Burial and provided some hints on how not to get buried alive in an earlier post, I thought I would turn my attentions to body-snatchers and provide some hints and tips on how to stay buried when you are dead…enjoy

Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis disposing of a body (1)

1825: the year in which porters at the Turf Hotel started to get a little nervous…..

In late Georgian Britain Newcastle was not only a burgeoning industrial and commercial centre but, before the advent of the railway, it was also one of the main staging posts for the London to Edinburgh coach.

The Turf Hotel was one of Newcastle’s most famous coaching inns.  It once stood on Collingwood Street and it was one of the main drop off/pick up points for both people and goods travelling north and south.  It also gained a certain infamy as the transport hub of the ghoulish trade in corpses destined for the anatomy schools in Scotland and London.

The Turf Hotel Coaching Inn, Newcastle, image from Martins Bank Archive.

As with any busy transport hub, sometimes both people and parcels missed their connection.  This was a particular problem at the weekend as coaches did not run on Sundays, so anybody missing the last coach on Saturday would have to wait until Monday to continue their journey.

On an ordinary Saturday in September 1825 a man deposited a large wooden chest at the booking office of the Turf, but for whatever reason, the chest missed the last coach and had to be stored at the booking office over the weekend.  By Monday the porters were becoming anxious because of the foul smell and strange ooze emanating from the container.  Police and a magistrate were called and the box opened.  Inside was the body of a teenage girl, apparently dead of natural causes, and destined, it would seem, for the anatomists table in Edinburgh.

There were several other similar occurrences over the next few years, making the job of porter at the Turf Hotel one filled with unwelcome surprises.  In 1828 a Mr James Aitcheson  of Edinburgh was arrested for depositing a chest at the Turf that contained a body.  He was later acquitted of any crime after claiming he had been an innocent dupe with no knowledge of the content of the box (this later proved to be a lie as a shop keeper recognised him as having bought wood from him to build the box in the first place!) however by that time, Mr A had absconded.

Eventually the porters became so fed up with having to investigate vile-smelling boxes containing nasty surprises that when a suspect package bound for Edinburgh arrived from York in November 1828, the porters simply refused to unpack it and sent it straight back to York.  Unfortunately at York, the equally suspicious and squeamish porters also refused to unpack it and sent it trundling back up to Newcastle!  The boxes peregrinations were eventually ended when, as local legend has it, the porters at the Turf solved the matter to their own satisfaction by throwing it into the River Tyne (lets hope it wasn’t just a student sending their dirty laundry home!).

Supply and Demand

18C anatomy lesson, image by Hogarth, public domain

So why the brisk trade in bodies?  Well, in the early nineteenth century anatomy schools, which were at that time  unlicensed, were springing up at an increasing rate: with famous schools in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow and London.  Advances in medical science required more and more subjects for the dissection tables but demand far outstripped supply.

In 1752 legislation stipulated that, as an additional ‘post mortem’ punishment, the bodies of hanged murderers could be handed over to the anatomists.  By the early nineteenth century as few as 55 or so bodies per year became available to anatomy schools by this legitimate method [2]. In addition to this, because refrigeration had yet to be invented, schools had now way of storing corpses so were in constant need of fresh ones.

Bodysnatchers, resurrectionists, Sack ’em up men or Burkers sought to fill this gap and line their pockets (the going rate appears to have been about 4 guineas for an adult, and by length for children: 6 shillings for the first foot then 9 pence for every inch thereafter [3]).  Although medical students were not averse to occasionally sourcing their own material, more often it was the criminal class, working hand in glove with the elite medical men of the day, who supplied the corpses that would used to train up the future  eminent doctors and surgeons of the nineteenth century.

Body Snatching in Theory and Practice

Resurrection Men – by Thomas Rowlandson 1756 – 1827

So how did they go about their trade?  Well there were a number of methods and preparation seems to have been paramount.

Resurrectionists or their wives would attend funerals in order to scout out the position of the corpse and any potential threats.  They might even take up the spade and masquerade as grave diggers themselves.

Once a likely corpse had been identified the resurrectionist would return to the cemetery at night, having suitably bribed any low paid cemetery attendants to leave the gates open.  If they had horses they would be shod in leather to deaden the hoofbeats, and they opened graves using wooden shovels to minimise noise.

Methods of extracting corpses could differ.  One popular way was for the grave-digger/resurrectionist whilst out of sight at the bottom of the grave, to sack up the occupant, and as the grave filled with soil the coffin would remain 6ft under, whilst the bagged up corpse slowly rose towards the surface where it could be retrieved with minimum effort later.

By far the most common method appears to have been to dig straight down to the approximate position of the head of the corpse, cover the coffin end with cloth to deaden the noise, wrench it off, and sling a rope around the cadavers head and haul it to the surface.

One commonly quoted method, devious in the extreme, was for a patch of turf to be cut many feet from the target grave, a tunnel would then be dug to the coffin and a child or small adult would then open the end of the coffin and dragg the corpse back along the shaft where the turf would be replaced.  The family would be none the wiser because the grave itself would be undisturbed.  Ingenious as this method appears, Wilkins in his Fireside Book of Death, doubts its practical application:  it would have been hard to correctly guess the level of the coffin and shore up the tunnel to avoid collapse.

Once the corpse was extracted the next thing to do was to remove any possessions such as jewelry, shroud etc in order to avoid being charged with a felony if caught.  Oddly enough, corpses were not considered property so punishment was often only a fine or prison, whereas theft could lead to the gallows or transportation.

Then it was a simple matter to dress the corpse in an old coat, and stagger off into the night pretending they were ‘dead’ drunk, or pack them up into your gig for delivery to the nearest anatomy school in the morning.  In fact, the presence of strangers at funerals in rural parishes, especially if they had a gig, was enough to lead to riots on occasion as gigs were inextricable linked to resurrectionists in the public imagination [4].

How to stay buried when you are dead

Now you might think that the resurrectionists had it all their own way, plundering graveyards, with minimal legal consequences and making a packet into the bargain.  But fear of having your loved one’s grave desecrated by sack ’em up men lead to the general public taking some serious precautions to avoid ending up on the dissecting table. And if they caught a resurrectionist they would meet out their own kind of justice on him.

The very poor might only have recourse to arranging stones or shells on a grave in order to tell if it had been disturbed, but there were other more complex methods available (for a price).  These methods are very often found in graveyards that are in close proximity to anatomy schools – I wonder why?  Here are some of the most notable found in England, Scotland and the USA :

1. Watch-clubs and Watchtowers

Watchtower at Dalkeith Cemetery. Image via Wikimedia

The most basic precautions were railings around cemeteries and posting a guard on graves.  Often loved ones would camp out for two or three weeks to guard a fresh burial.  Once putrefaction had time to set in the corpse was no longer a viable commodity.

Watch-clubs were also formed, Glasgow watching society had 2000 members.  To make things more comfortable for watchers, especially in winter, watch houses or watch towers were built.  Some were quite impressive like the one at Dalkeith Cemetery, dating from 1827, near Edinburgh.

2.Mortstones and Mortsafes

Mortsafe at Logeriat Church. Image by Judy Willson via Wikimedia

The next sensible thing to do was to make it as difficult as possible for resurrectionists to get to your coffin.  In Scotland stones and branches were added to grave fill to make digging harder, and mortstones were used.  Mortstones were huge heavy slabs of stone placed over the grave to prevent disturbance.  They could be rented out and reused.

The only drawback with mortstones was that resurrectionists soon learned to simply dig at the head of the stone to find the end of the coffin and thereby extract the corpse!

Mortsafes were a more sophisticated version of mortstones, heavy stone slabs with a complex wire cage structure about them.  Placed over the coffin they effectively barred the way to resurrectionists.  They too, could be rented out and reused again and again (so the body-snatchers were not the only ones making a profit here).

3. Coffin Collars

Coffin collar from Kingskettle Graveyard

In between mortstones and mortsafes come coffin collars.  These simple but effective devices were a response to the fact that resurrectionists could easily pull corpses out of the end of a coffin despite the mort stone atop the grave.  The metal collar was fixed around the neck of the corpse and then nailed to the bottom of the coffin.

4. Mort houses

The Morthouse Udny Green, image by Martin Gorman via Wikimedia

The rich have always had the edge on avoiding body-snatchers, they can afford burial inside churches, vaults, mausolea.  Not so the poor, not until mort houses were conceived.  Often set up by public subscription bodies could remain in the locked and secure mort house until they decayed and then be buried in the grave yard.

Udny Green mort house in Aberdeenshire is a circular fortress of decay uniquely designed with a turntable.  A body was added, the turntable moved, and another was added, by the time the original body was at the opening again it was sufficiently decayed to be taken out for burial in the graveyard.  Unfortunately, Udny Green was built in 1832 the year the Anatomy Act came into force so it was almost immediately obsolete.

5. Cemetery Guns and Coffin Torpedoes

Mr P Clover’s Patented Coffin Torpedo

Cemetery Guns have a long history and were used in Britain until they were finally outlawed in 1827.  Mr Clementshaw designed a bell mouthed flintlock complete with trip wires that could defend a cemetery at night, and be unloaded and made safe when the sexton returned in the morning.  Needless to say there were accidental fatalities usually involving drunken revellers wandering through graveyards at night.

Not to be outdone, the American’s developed coffin torpedoes.  After the Civil War there was a rise in the number of anatomy schools in the US and this brought with it an increase in grave robbing.  In 1878 Mr P Clover of Columbus Ohio developed a shortened gun to fit under the coffin lid which would be primed to fire in the face of anyone foolish enough to desecrate the grave.  Just curious, but I wonder how many of these are still lurking in US cemeteries to this day…best to tread carefully I would say!

The Anatomy Act 1832 – how the poor paid the price

Burke and Hare were by far the most notorious resurrectionists, the Edinburgh based duo decided that all that digging was far to much like hard work and instead they murdered their victims (Hare was allegedly in Newcastle in 1828 and may just have had a hand in setting up the cross-country cadaver network uncovered at the Turf Hotel[5]).  Their trial in 1828 created such outrage that a Parliamentary Select Committee was set up to look into legally increasing the supply of corpses to anatomy schools.

After a few amendments the new Anatomy Act 1832 was passed and the problem appeared to be resolved,  resurrectionists were officially out of a job and anatomy schools had to be licenced.  Section 7 changed the law to allow that anyone lawfully in possession of a corpse could permit it to undergo anatomical examination providing no relatives objected; while section 16 abolished the requirement for bodies of criminals to be dissected.  All good and well you might think, but the Act was open to abuse.

What the changes to the law meant in practice was that unscrupulous work house owners and even hospitals could make a ‘killing’ out of their inmates (and they had ways of ensuring that circumstances did not allow for any relatives to raise objections).  Some medical schools went as far as too hang around outside workhouses like vultures if they even had a whiff that an inmate was feeling a bit peaky and there were cases of hosptials burying patients then buying their bodies back for dissection.  I think that Ruth Richardson neatly sums up the impact of the Act on the poor in her book ‘Death, Dissection and the Destitute’

“What had for generations been a feared and hated punishment for murder became one for poverty.” [6]

The Act paved the way for anatomy schools to make significant advances in medicine however it should not be forgotten that the heaviest price for these advances was ultimately paid, as always, by the poorest in society.

Seasons Greetings!

Notes

1. Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis in Burke and Hare, 2010,  Dir John Landis; 2. Regina Jeffers; 3. Robert Wilkins; 4. Monthly Chronicle of North Country Lore and Legends;
5. Pamela Armstrong;6. Quoted in Robert Wilkins p83

Sources

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bodysnatchers/background.php

Armstrong, Pamela, 1990, Dark Tales of Old Newcastle, Bridge Studios

http://www.guns.com/2013/08/06/cemetery-guns-and-coffin-torpedoes/

Coffin Collars & Cemetery Guns: Fortifying the Dead against Bodysnatchers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortsafe

Wilkins, Robert, 1990, The Fireside Book of Death, Hale

Unattributed, 1990, The Body in the Bank: Famous Northern Murders, Coquet Editions

https://archive.org/stream/monthlychronicl02unkngoog#page/n342/mode/2up/search/Turf+Hotel  Monthly Chronicle of North Country Lore and  Legend

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrectionists_in_the_United_Kingdom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortsafe

http://reginajeffers.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/body-snatching-and-resurrectionists/

Udny green = Martyn Gorman [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia