Campaigners bid to clear the 'witch' who leaked WWII secrets about sinking battleship

Campaigners bid to clear the 'witch' who leaked WWII secrets about sinking battleship

Last updated at 21:07pm on 01.03.08

When the battleship Barham was torpedoed by the Germans in November 1941, with the loss of over 800 lives, the Admiralty delayed announcing the news to maintain morale.
But the secrecy was ended within a few days when medium Helen Duncan told a couple during a seance that their son, a sailor on the ship, had appeared from the spirit world to tell them it had sunk.
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Witch? Helen Duncan, pictured in a portrait from 1931, was jailed for nine months in 1944 under the Witchcraft Act of 1735


In one of the most bizarre acts of the Second World War, Mrs Duncan was accused of leaking military secrets - and became the last woman jailed as a witch in the UK.
Now campaigners want an official pardon for the Scots-born mother of six, who spent nine months in Holloway Prison, north London.
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Helen Duncan had a vision the HMS Barham would be involved in a wartime tragedy


A group of mediums have handed a petition to the Scottish Parliament, calling on it to lobby Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.
Campaigner Roberta Gordon, from Gullane, East Lothian, said: "At the time the country was paranoid about security and the evidence used against her wasn't accurate.
"It would take away the stigma from her granddaughters and the great-grandsons."
Mrs Duncan was one of Britain's best-known mediums. During her seances she produced "ectoplasm" - a stringy white substance that is supposed to give form to spirits and allow them to communicate.
Paranormal investigators denounced her as a fraud who used cheesecloth and egg whites, but her family insist she was genuine, "an ordinary woman with a gift".
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Helen Duncan, here with husband Henry, after the war, was the last person in Britain to be jailed under the Witchcraft Act


Despite the controversy, Mrs Duncan reputedly numbered Winston Churchill and George VI among her clients.
Churchill denounced the case against her as "obsolete tomfoolery" and visited her in prison.
The Barham, a 29,000-ton battleship, was hit by three German torpedoes in the Mediterranean on November 25, 1941.


Stigma: Helen Duncan's granddaughter Mary Martin


The ship went down within minutes, with the loss of 861 lives. Already reeling from the Blitz, the British government decided not to make the news public, not least to keep the Germans guessing.
But Duncan, who was living in Portsmouth at the time, held a seance just days later and told how she saw a sailor with the words HMS Barham on his hatband.
He told her: "My ship is sunk". News of the revelation reached the Admiralty and she was placed under observation. But she was not arrested until January 1944.
The trial in March 1944 caused a media sensation as Mrs Duncan was accused of being a traitor.
But the prosecution struggled to back the claim and she was convicted instead under the 1735 Witchcraft Act, which had declared there could be no such thing as a medium.
She was the last person in Britain jailed under the act, which was repealed in 1951. The last person convicted, East Londoner Jane Yorke, 72, escaped with a fine in October 1944 due to her age.
Mrs Duncan died in 1956, soon after being arrested again in a police raid on a seance.
Last year the Criminal Cases Review Commission rejected a petition for her to be pardoned, saying it would not be in the public interest.

Campaigners bid to clear the 'witch' who leaked WWII secrets about sinking battleship| News | This is London

 

Incredible I can't believe the lady was convicted in the 20th century for withcraft! This is amazing .

 

I know Skip. This woman lived in a town about 20 miles away from me, and last year the local rag ran this story about a pardon. Don't know if it's connected or not, but it seems a bit pointless to me. According to local legend, she did a roaring trade to her dying day thanks to her 'infamy'.

 

She wasn't.

The British authorities stopped taking witchcraft seriously nearly 300 years ago. The whole point of the 1735 Witchcraft Act was not to end witchcraft, but to end silly stories and phoney seances. The Act is like a forerunner to the Trade Descriptions Act; it made it illegal to con people into thinking you were performing magic.

Mrs Duncan was in effect convicted of fraud

Mrs Duncan already had a pre-war conviction, when during one of her seances a guest grabbed at the shape of a ghost emerging from the other side under her skirt, and found it was a knitted elastic undervest.

The petition with more than 200 signatures, demanding that she be given a full posthumous pardon was organised by Full Moon Investigations, a team of Scottish ghost-busters who claim to have paranormal gifts

 

*bump* for an update-
"A woman dubbed Britain's last witch could be pardoned posthumously thanks to a new law.
Helen Duncan was sentenced to nine months in jail for witchcraft in 1944 after having a premonition about the sinking of the Royal Navy HMS Barham before the news was announced to the public.
However, campaigners for her pardon now hope that, with the introduction of 'Turing's Law', Duncan can be exonerated after the legislation that was used to convict her was similarly repealed.
Duncan, from Callander in Stirlingshire, was a housewife and mother to six children.
She was said to have been well-known in spiritualist circles for her apparent ability to communicate with the dead.
In 1941, she held a seance in Portsmouth where she claimed to have made contact with a sailor who had died aboard HMS Barham.
The Royal Navy vessel had been torpedoed in the Mediterranean, with 800 lives lost, but the news had not yet been made public.
Duncan's vision was therefore considered a threat to national security and, supposedly, could even have jeapardised the outcome of the war according to some military chiefs.
She was arrested, branded a traitor and ended up being one of the last people to be charged under the Witchcraft Act of 1735 and was sentenced to nine months in jail.
Duncan, often dubbed Britain's last witch, died in 1956 while the Witchcraft Act of 1735 was repealed in 1951."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3889162/Fresh-hope-campaign-pardon-Britain-s-witch-convicted-1944-200-year-old-law-vision-WWII-war-ship.html#ixzz4Og61T3EN

 

at the local level in many asian countries you still have witch hunts and kangaroo trials.

 

An interesting case, but the more I read, the more confused I get ! But thanks to all those who posted on the thread.

I have looked at the official website here http://helenduncan.org/about-helen-duncan/ amongst other on line sources, and from what I can work out....

The Witchcraft Act 1753 was still on the statue books but was effectively replaced by 1951 Fraudulent Mediums Act, which has now been repealed.

The seance took place in Portsmouth November 1941 in which Mrs. Duncan ( allegedly ) materialised the spirits of the sailors from HMS Barnham that had been sunk though this fact was not officially announced until January 1942.....as already has been described on this tread . However, the Admiralty allegedly knew about the seance at some point between those dates, but Mrs. Duncan wasn't arrested until January 1944 though carried on giving seances .
( Which seemed to be the view of 'helenduncan.org)


Above website also claims that Mrs. Duncan was first arrested under section four Vagrancy Act, then charged under section four of the Witchcraft Act 1753. Both deal with 'pretending' to conjure up spirits. And the charge that stuck was along the lines of 'conspiracy to conjure up spirits'.

So some respect more of a clampdown on the part of the authorities directed against Spiritualism rather than a security issue . The charges seem bizarre looking back now, but then on the other hand, then I start to wonder why did the legal system bother with her at all?


Interesting article here, mentioning a couple of other convictions in 1944

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jan/24/comment.comment3

 

Against spiritualism or against fraud?

 

I can't make my mind up. From what I can work out, Spiritualists feel that their belief was placed on trial. It was beyond dispute that Mrs. Duncan was involved in conducting seances. If it emerged that she was pretending to engage with spirits, then she was committing a criminal offence. The only option opened to her was to try to vindicate what she was doing by justifying her role as a medium.
Personally I am sceptical about mediums .But as an amateur historian I am quite curious why the authorities decided to bring a prosecution at the start of 1944, but not earlier if we are to accept that Mrs. Duncan was openly conducting seances for years before hand.

 

The authorities likely thought it was fraud whether it actually was or not. I'm sure you are correct that the spiritualist considered it an attack on Spiritualism. Since many of the authorities may not have seen the difference their position has some merit. Others in authority may well have considered it "witch craft" and some thing their religion required them to oppose or made them view as "wrong". You'd have to find out who the key players are and see what they thought (if such data still or ever existed) to be sure.

It does raise some interesting questions and issues that may be of import beyond a rather minor case.

 

Indeed. I had a quick look at the National Archives website to see if there was any information on the case but couldn't locate any material. Would be interesting to see what conclusions the authorities had come to as regards Mrs. Duncan's activities before they decided to act .