The Man Behind the Medium: Helen Duncan and Albert Stewart

Spiritualist medium Helen Duncan is most frequently remembered for being the last person convicted and imprisoned under the 1736 Witchcraft Act in 1944. Revered by some as the most talented physical medium in history and reviled by others as a monumental fraud, Helen did not work alone. Like many mediums, she believed fully in the support of spirit guides - entities from the spirit world who acted as a bridge between the living and those who had passed over.

Helen Duncan

Helen had several guides after she started to develop her gift of mediumship, but one in particular stayed with her for the majority of her career and made the biggest impact on both Helen's work and the lives of those who knew her. 

Albert Stewart made his first appearance around 1927, when the dangerously erratic Matthew Douglas was deemed no longer suitable to be Helen's spirit "control" after he threatened to kill the medium. According to accounts of the meeting, Albert introduced himself as having been born in Scotland around 1883, where he had lived before emigrating to Australia with his parents. There he became an apprentice pattern maker, but died in 1913 at the young age of 33.

Unlike the reprehensible Douglas, Albert was, by all accounts, of a much calmer nature. According to Helen's daughter Gena's recollections, the newly arrived control reassured Helen and those gathered with her, declaring that “Together we will move forward to a better understanding and better phenomena.” Indeed Albert did not fail to deliver: under his guidance Helen's career as a physical medium took off in a way that no one had expected.

Far from just guiding Helen in seances, Albert became a full member of the Duncan family. The children referred to him as “Uncle Albert” and they prayed to him along with God to protect them and keep them safe. Helen herself kept a picture of a bust of Albert in her own bedroom, and one of the family homes was named Albertine partly in his honour. 

Albert's word was law in the Duncan household, with many of his words of encouragement and guidance staying with Helen and her children alike many years after they were uttered. It was a good thing that he was listened to, as there were several occasions on which it was believed Albert saved the lives of those he watched over. At the end of his very first appearance he warned Helen and Henry that they should tell the hospital where poorly Gena was being treated that she should be moved from the doorway: it was timely advice, as the ill child was later discovered to be suffering from pneumonia. Another time Albert expressed his concern about a mutual friend, contributing to a later diagnosis of skin cancer which was then kept at bay through the guide's advice. Albert was even believed to have saved Helen herself: in the operating room where the medium was undergoing a hysterectomy, a voice was heard declaring that the surgeon had cut far enough. This was discovered to be the case, but afterwards no one present would or could admit to having uttered the words. When the voice was described to Helen's husband, Henry Duncan, the mystery was deemed to be solved - Albert, Henry declared, had spoken again. 

The Two Worlds of Helen Duncan, containing

Helen's daughter Gena's recollections of her mother

and Albert.

There were times however when Albert was not heeded so closely, leading to disaster for the medium he attempted to protect. Albert had tried to warn Helen of impending danger before an ill-fated séance in 1933, telling her to take care, (though not specifying of what.) The seance turned out to be a trap, and Helen was arrested for suspected fraud. Albert spoke out again in 1944 when Helen was running a series of seances in Portsmouth for the Master Temple Psychic Centre: he stressed that a gentleman in naval uniform should not be admitted to one seance, and again a few days later advised that a group of three men should be turned away. The cost of not heeding Albert's words were far greater this time: Helen was arrested, charged, and found guilty at The Old Bailey, sentenced to serve nine months imprisonment in Holloway Prison. 

Many people spoke of their experience of Albert over the years he worked as Helen's guide. One thing on which almost everyone commented was his voice. The aforementioned surgeon described the mystery voice he heard as an “Oxford” accent. The President of the International Spiritualist Federation described Albert's voice as “One of the most musical voices” he had ever heard. Other attempts to describe the voice they heard were “A nice masculine voice,” and “cultured Australian," and the glowing report by one witness of Albert being “the nicest spoken man I have ever met.” One of the few people to deny Albert his Oxford accent was Hannen Swaffer, the renowned drama critic who was one of Helen's staunchest supporters – his objection was that the "Oxford Accent" was a fabrication and purely a “BBC idea”. When pressed for his views on the voice of Helen's guide he eventually said he had heard it described as Cockney and also Australian, but that he himself simply thought it “natural”.

Personality-wise, Albert was a convincingly human mix of contradictions. Whilst courteously referring to Helen as “Mrs Duncan" at all times, that did not prevent him from making jokes at the medium's expense. There are several recorded instances of him joking about her substantial weight, along with complaints about her smoking habit and the resultant coughing that was one of his pet peeves. Albert was also not without a sense of humour: on one occasion he invited a Dr. Rust to examine him during a séance at the London Psychic Research Centre, quipping afterwards that the Doctor would be able to tell the others that he was indeed “all man.”

When in a genial mood, Albert gave permission for photographs to be taken by those he considered sympathetic, and was happy for spirit forms to be looked at closely, even giving permission on occasion for samples of ectoplasm – the substance that came from the medium's body and of which the spirits were formed – to be taken and studied. He also - as befitted his role of Master of Ceremonies - was given to a certain amount of showmanship. Once when asked if phenomena could occur if Helen was bound he showed that indeed it could, tying and freeing the medium in the space of seconds to an amazed audience.

Seance sitters sometimes came in for Albert's acerbic wit, but there was one person in particular who provoked his ire more than any other: Helen's husband Henry. At various time he is reported as having called Henry an ass and a fat head, and even on one occasions threatened to strangle him in utter exasperation.

A photograph of a spirit form taken with

permission by Albert.

At Helen's trial in 1944, many came forward to give testimony that they had witnessed Albert and heard his voice. They had heard him speak, and some had even touched him, one speaking of an occasion where the obliging guide had put his very real bare foot into a sitter's hand. Others told of how they had felt Helen's hand and then Albert's - one rough and small, the other smooth and long fingered. There were times when the two had actually been seen standing next to each other - Helen at 5ft 4, with Albert towering over her at just over 6 feet tall. These were rational, sensible people, respected members of their communities with respectable jobs and lives, all willing to testify that Albert Stewart was very, very real. 

Not everyone was so convinced though. There were some who declared that “Albert's” voice was nothing more than the medium's, not even that cleverly disguised. Others insisted that there was little distinction between Helen and her guide, and that the additional height was created through tricks and poor lighting. Others complained that Albert was poorly formed, and looked like cloth with barely visible features.

Despite divided opinion as to his existence, it mattered little to Helen and her family, their belief in Albert continued right until the end. In 1956 as Helen lay dying,  Albert was there with her, telling visiting friends two days before her death that “We are talking Mrs Duncan home. She has well earned her rest." The bond remained: shortly after her passing, Helen sent a message via another medium that Albert had been there to meet her on the other side.

Bronze Bust of Helen Duncan

displayed in Stirling. 

Unlike some spirit guides, There is currently no evidence of Albert having being a true historical figure before he passed into spirit, with no record of birth or death discovered so far to corroborate his story of his origins.  Does anyone have any information on the historical Albert? If so it would be great to hear from you.

And for those curious to hear the voice of Albert for themselves, a rare recording from a Helen Duncan seance can be found here: Albert is the first voice to speak. 

Link to Albert's Voice.

Richard Deacon and the Tendring Witchcraft Revelations

“Don't believe everything you read,” is sound advice for the historian or casual reader alike. It was particularly appropriate when, during my recent research into Mary Lakeland, burnt at Ipswich in 1645 for the crime of murdering her husband through witchcraft, I came across a book that seemed to offer some intriguing answers to the question of why she went to the flames. 

Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General, by Richard Deacon was published in 1976, purporting to be the first proper biography of this elusive figure. After finding it for a steal on Amazon Marketplace, I eagerly awaited its arrival, marvelling as, by chance, it opened at the exact page I needed.  

As I read, I was made aware for the first time of a document known as The Tendring Witchcraft Revelations. According to Deacon, this was an unpublished manuscript, dated 1725 and authored by C. S. Perryman. It consisted of information that had been “compiled by divers informers” between 1645 and 1650, and covered a wealth of information about Hopkins and the witch hunts of Essex and Suffolk.  Throughout the book, much of which is based on the information contained in these “Revelations”, Deacon spins a tale of intrigue and espionage, magic and mystery. Hopkins is portrayed as a sinister, shadowy figure, swapping political secrets in exchange for the assistance of astrologer William Lilly and John Thurloe, a vital link to the government in London, in his witch hunt.  

Most intriguing in view of my research however, Deacon states that based on the “firm evidence” from this source, it is possible to say with certainty that Hopkins visited Ipswich in connection with Mary Lakeland's case.  

There are numerous suggestions for why Mary Lakeland was executed whilst several others accused of witchcraft at the same time were not, but the one put forward by Deacon is perhaps the most sensationalist, and according to The Tendring Revelations:

“Hopkins, who had travelled into Hollande purposefully to be instructed in astrology... went to Ipswiche especially to examine this suspected Informer of the Royalist Lady Whorwood.”

A known Royalist supporter who smuggled both gold and information to the beleaguered Charles I, Lady Jane Whorwood was wife of Brome Whorwood of Holton Park, Oxford. She was devoted to helping the King, taking part in two, unsuccessful, escape attempts, and it is believed that she was also his mistress for a time. In a stroke of Deacon's pen, Mary Lakeland passes from poor, Ipswich widow to dangerous Royalist informer, silenced for her crimes against the state.  

 The plot thickened, as it turned out that Hopkins himself had a deeper connection with the renowned Royalist, having several meetings with the woman in which he fabricated stories regarding his history in order to conceal his Puritan leanings and win her trust. Quite what Hopkins could want with Lady Whorwood is hard to determine, but Deacon speculate that she was in fact paying Hopkins for information, and that it was this role as a double-agent that ultimately led to Hopkins' own downfall. 

Often mis-identified as Lady Jane Whorwood; 

it is in fact a portrait of her sister. 

Hopkins was, according to Deacon, finally swum as a witch himself, the Tendring Witchcraft Revelations asserting that:

“He was soe treated by his owne methodes of establishing Witches in parte by objections to his methodes by a few of his neighbours but farrre more soe by reason of the facte that he was discovered to be in league with the Lady Whorewood, an error of judgemente which seems strangelie out of character.” 

This leads rapidly to the conclusion Deacon has evidently been building to; allowing that the Tendring Revelations accept that there is a record of burial for Hopkins in the Mistley parish church, the document goes on to say that:

"nobodie in the localitie was present at hys burial and if buried he was at Mistley it may have beene outside the precinctes of the Churche in the dark of night when noone else was about his business."

His final suggestion based on this evidence is that Hopkins left the country in 1647 and fled to America, where he continued his witchfinding enterprises until the end of his days. tThe burial record, he posits, was faked by Hopkins' own mother, an easy thing to do if she was, as Deacon suggests, the second wife of Thomas Witham, the parson at Mistley at the time. 

Intriguing, thought provoking, and a definite page turner, unfortunately things are not as they seem. Richard Deacon was the pen name of Donald McCormick, journalist, historian, and former naval intelligence officer.  With a penchant for writing about sensational topics such as Jack the Ripper, Hellfire Clubs and The Cambridge Apostles, McCormick specialised in "revealing" previously unknown "facts" to a fascinated readership. Utilising to the full the maxim that a lie is most convincingly hidden between two truths, McCormick slotted his inventions almost seamlessly into historical lore, a series of what can only be seen as hoaxes.

So what of the Tendring Witchcraft Revelations and the theories Deacon/McCormick created around the supposed contents of the document? While still referenced by the unwary writer today, it is generally accepted that the "document" was in fact a product of the author's imagination. It has never been seen, and it is safe to say that it never existed outside of the fabricated quotes scattered through his book on Hopkins. 

There is also  no evidence outside of this that Mary Lakeland had anything to do with either Matthew Hopkins or Lady Jane Whorwood. 

Donald McCormick, 1959

McCormick never publicly admitted to the various hoaxes he perpetuated during his writing career, and died in 1998 at the age of eighty-seven. There are, however, clues if you choose to look; in Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General he makes the ironic observation that:

“Not only are many records missing, but some of them have been tampered with, others are false, and some blatant forgeries.” 

The Medium and The Doctor: What Really Happened to Doctor Todd?

Victoria Helen Duncan nee MacFarlane

The medium Helen Duncan is best known as the last woman to be successfully convicted under the Witchcraft Act of 1735. Imprisoned for nine months in 1944 after a police raid on a Portsmouth séance, her case attracted great media attention, and was instrumental in the eventual abolishment of the Witchcraft Act, and its replacement by the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951. An event that is related in several sources regarding Helen Duncan, however, took place in her early life, when she was around ten years old. Well-known by her classmates and locals in the Perthshire town of Callander as “different”, she had been told in no uncertain terms by her mother to keep stories of visions and visiting spirits to herself. On this occasion she forgot the warning. As recounted by her daughter, Gena Brealy in her recollections of her mother:

“There was the incident of the village doctor who had gone missing in a blinding snowstorm. The local people, fearing he had had a serious accident, organised a search party. Hearing her parents discussing this, Helen said, “Don't worry. He's not far from here. They'll find him.” As her father and mother looked at her, Helen realised she had again done what her mother had warned her not to do, so she quickly went out of the room.

The story had a happy ending however, as:

Within a matter of hours, a neighbour came to tell the MacFarlanes that the doctor had been found close by. His car had gone into a snowdrift just a few miles away. Neither parent mentioned this outcome to Helen, but she knew they had earmarked the incident as another “odd thing” about her.”

Loch Lubnaig

Noticeably different in tone is the account of the story given in  Nina Shandler's The Strange Case of Hellish Nell.  As in the version related by Brealy,  Helen, despite being warned by her mother in no uncertain terms to stop mentioning her visions and messages from spirit visitors, couldn't hold back when she had a vision of the fate of the kindly local physician, Dr. Todd. The tale differs however as now she went to warn the doctor that he shouldn't make his intended journey to Strathyre. Doctor Todd, although listening politely, declined to heed Helen's warning, leaving the young girl to worry the night away. In the morning, the alarm went up that the doctor was missing, but this time there was to be no happy ending.

“Men on horseback carrying torches gathered at the corner of Bridgend and Main Streets. Bracing themselves against the whipping storm, the search party began the slow trek towards the Pass of Leny. Nearing Loch Lubnaig, they strained to see through the swirling snow. No doubt, the rescuers would have missed Dr. Todd's car, if not for Nell's directions. The men shoveled furiously. Forcing the car door open, they pulled the doctor's frozen body out. Dr Todd was dead.”

 Aware of the tale as told by Helen Duncan's daughter, Shandler decided to favour the version told to her by Mr. Harvey MacNaughton, who had lived in Callander at the time. Considered by her to be the more reliable source, MacNaughton's version of events also tallied with those remembered by the village as a whole, and included the fact that seemed to prove the point:

“From that day forward, all Callander dubbed that curve in the road between Callander and Strathyre 'The Doctor's Corner.'”

Map showing position of Loch Lubnaig,

on the road between Callander and Strathyre

What then was the truth of the tale of the medium and the doctor? The answers, or at least some of them, can be found in The Dundee Evening Telegraph for 7^th May 1908 where an article fills in some much-needed details:

Dr. Todd, Callander, was killed on Wednesday while Mr. P. T. Smith, at present residing at the Dreadnought Hotel, Callander, was driving his motor car from Strathyre to Callandar with Mr. Todd and another occupant. The car bumped on a stone, and swerved to the side, going over the embankment of Loch Lubnaig.

All were thrown out of the car, and escaped with slight injuries, except Dr Todd, upon whom the car had fallen. It was seen that the doctor was seriously injured, and he died at one o'clock this morning.

A later report on the 18^th June in the same newspaper added the information that:

W. C. Gibson, road surveyor, deponed that there was no stone or any other obstruction on the road to cause the motor to turn to the side, and he thought from the position of the car that it had been travelling fast.

A verdict of accident, caused by careless driving, was returned at the hearing.

Grave of Dr. James Todd

The only matter that has not been cleared up satisfactorily therefore is that of the snow. Both Brealy's and Shandler's accounts refer to the appalling weather, yet it is not mentioned in the newspaper accounts, which even go so far as to say that there was no sign of there being anything adverse in the road - a fact that does not suggest an area greatly covered with snow! It is almost tempting, especially given the time of year that events occurred, to suspect a certain amount of over-embellishment taking place. 

It turns out however that there was indeed freak wintry weather across England and Scotland in April of that year. While it is difficult to determine for certain if the snow storms and freezing temperatures that buffeted the country extended into May itself, the memory of the bad weather could easily have combined with the fate of the doctor in local imaginations. 

Snowfall in Aberdeen, Scotland, 1908

Just under seven miles away from Callander, the corner on the A84 where Dr. Todd met his fate is still an accident hotspot today. Fittingly, the legend of the doctor is still going strong in various versions, such as the following warning to modern day drivers:

"The road was much improved during the 1980s, but still has the occasional hefty bend to keep the driver awake - such as the right-hander near the head of the loch - locally known as "Doctor's Corner" after a local doctor who didn't make it one night on an emergency call!"

From Art to Occultists: The Crystal Ball

 An interest in everything witchcraft related is a wonderful excuse to explore the vast and varied body of artwork with witchy undertones. A personal favourite is The Crystal Ball, by Pre-Raphaelite painter John William Waterhouse.

Finished in 1902, the painting depicts a young woman holding the ever-popular crystal ball. Shown with its sister painting, The Missal at the Royal Academy in the year of completion, by 1909 the pair was in the collection of Frederick Pyman, shipowner, and it is speculated that they may have been commissioned for his new home in Whitby. The Crystal Ball eventually came to rest in the dining room of Glenborrodale Castle in Scotland, where it remained until it was sold along with the castle in 1952/3.  

Is the young woman a witch? A sorceress? She is clearly appealing to some form of magic, with a wand visible on a nearby book, which itself displays various signs and symbols. The background spied through the window is dark and menacing, and one cannot help but hope that the girl knows what she is getting into as she peers intently into the crystal ball in her hands. The most interesting feature however is the disappearing skull; disliked by the new owner it was painted over with a strategically placed curtain, and remained hidden until the amendment was discovered in 1994 when the painting came to Christies to be auctioned. Subsequently restored to its former state, the painting currently resides in a private collection.

Painting with the skull restored

Crystal balls such as that depicted here have been used by numerous cultures throughout the centuries.  Their main purpose is that of scrying, the practice of looking into a translucent surface with the intention of seeing images that can then be interpreted at the scryer's discretion. Also know as "seeing" or "peeping", the most common surfaces used are crystals, glass, mirrors, water, and even fire and smoke. 

Although they can be traced back to at least 500AD in Europe, the crystal ball saw a resurgence in popularity in England in the mid 19^th Century, and the well-known image of a fortune-teller peering into a ball was largely a construct of this era. With access to more sophisticated apparatus, and a growing popularity among occultists and spiritualists, both demand and availability of crystal balls increased rapidly in the latter half of the century. In the early 1870s, for instance, an optician named Slater was producing balls at £1 11s 6d, but by late 1890s the price had dropped significantly, and in 1897 a Mr Vennan was selling them for the reduced price of between 2s 6d and 5s 6d. Writing in 1905 in his book Crystal Gazing, Northcote Whitridge Thomas points out that balls are kept in stock by the Society for Psychical Research, readily available should anyone require one. 

The face of fortune telling itself was changing significantly over this period. Turning their backs on their more provincial roots, urban fortune tellers were taking on such titles as medium, character reader and clairvoyant, while the traditional "Mother" was replaced with the more sophisticated sounding "Madame". Changes in the law played a part in this growing trend; the Vagrancy Act of 1824 and its subsequent amendments decreed it against the law for:

 “Every person pretending or professing to tell fortunes, or using any subtle craft, means or device, by palmistry or otherwise, to deceive and impose on any of his Majesty's subjects." 

This made it a wise career move for a savvy fortune teller to restyle his or herself, in order to avoid prosecution. Punishment under the act included hard labour or imprisonment. This clause was only repealed in 1989. 

 

The balls themselves were used for two distinct purposes. Occultists utilised them as a method for spirit communications, making contact with those who had passed over or angelic entities. The other, more common use, is that already mentioned of scrying, during which images in answer to a question or a general picture of the future would be seen. The act of gazing into the ball  acted as an aid to concentration, the ball providing a surface for the images to form on. The balls were taking over the role of more commonplace reflective objects or substances such as mirrors or tubs of water that had long been used by local cunning folk. 

Belief in the efficacy of crystal balls was widespread, although not everyone was convinced of their ability to predict the future or reveal the identity of a thief. The aforementioned Northcote Whitridge Thomas, a British Government anthropologist renowned for field research in Nigeria and Sierra Leone in the early 20th Century, was rather matter of fact on the subject. Whilst denying the more spectacular claims for crystal balls, he explains at great length his certainty that people did indeed “see” with the aid of a ball, and cites many examples from his own experience with friends and acquaintances. He found that cultures across a wide range of countries and peoples had been crystal gazers, reasoning that if there was nothing in the process of scrying, they would hardly continue to do so for so many centuries. 

Whatever one believes about their properties, there is no denying the beauty and fascination these balls hold. The crystal ball claimed to be the largest in the world currently resides at the offices of the American Ceramic Society, in Westerville, Ohio. 

A sixty-five pounds flawless specimen is to be found at the Natural History Museum, Los Angeles.

The third largest crystal ball known to history is a sphere made of quartz crystal from Burma. weighing fifty-five pounds, it was made for the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) during the Qing Dynasty. Stolen from the Penn Museum at the University of Pennsylvania in 1988, the ball was recovered unharmed three years later. 

 

Death by Witchcraft? Charles Walton and the Witchcraft Murder

"Witches - so that's the 17th century?" It is a natural assumption; after all, the trials and persecutions of that period are large in popular consciousness when it comes to witchcraft. Today's delve into the library, however, highlights the timeless nature of the witch. We visit the quiet Warwickshire village of Lower Quinton, where the readiness to blame witchcraft for unexplained calamity was alive and well in the 20th Century. 

On 14^th February 1945, seventy-four year old Charles Walton was discovered dead in the field on Meon Hill where he had been working. A reclusive, but well-liked man who had lived in the village for years with his niece, he had been brutally murdered; the weapons, his own hedging tools.

Meon Hill, Warwickshire

The case very quickly gained attention, with Robert Fabian, the celebrated Scotland Yard Detective, soon arriving on the scene. Over the following weeks, every inhabitant of the village was interviewed, over 400 British Servicemen on leave that day were located and questioned as to their whereabouts, and over 1,100 Italian Prisoners of War at the nearby camp were searched. Despite the extensiveness of the investigation, to this day, the case remains unsolved.

It is unlikely that the identity of Charles Walton's killer will ever come to light, much less the motivation for doing so. What proves immensely fascinating, however, are the rumours, assumptions and outright inventions that have transformed Walton's death from a senseless tragedy into a tale of dark and terrifying magic.

The most commonly repeated error is the belief that a large cross was found carved into Walton's chest. This has been taken as evidence that black magic was responsible for his death, with much speculation that Walton was murdered by a local coven of witches with whom he was “well known” to be involved. While Walton's injuries were gruesome enough - The blade of a bill hook buried in his throat, his face impaled by a pitchfork and pinned to the ground – there was no mention of cross symbolism in the case files or original reports of the murder. As for Walton's supposed connections to local witches, again, there is no evidence to support these claims.

It is often pointed out (erroneously) that, by the old Julian Calendar, February 14^th actually translated to the date of Imbolc, the pagan festival that marks the beginning of Spring. It is argued that it was known locally to be the best day for a blood sacrifice, helping the earth after the recent winter and to make sure of a plentiful harvest that year. Although this makes for good storytelling, there is nothing to suggest a ritual element to Walton's death.

There have been attempts to connect the victim to another Charles Walton. In 1885, the plough boy was reported to have seen a large black dog, a well known sign of death, several nights in a row on his way home. The tale ends with a vision of a headless woman accompanying the dog on the last night, supposedly heralding the death of his sister the following day. This would be all well and good, apart from the fact that Walton's sisters appear alive and well into at least the next decade.

Another attempt to link Walton's murder to the past is with the case of Ann Turner, who, in 1875, was stabbed by a young man who suspected her of being a witch in nearby Long Compton. Turner later died of her injuries. The only connection appears to be the use of a pitchfork in both cases, but there the similarity ends, although some sources cite a very distant familial connection between Ann Turner and Charles Walton, not uncommon in rural communities even today.

The proximity of the Rollright Stones is also frequently mentioned, an area rich in legend and stories of dark magic. Some reports state that Walton was found in the very middle of the stones themselves, having been used as part of a terrifying and bloody ritual. The spot were Walton's body was discovered and the stones are actually twelve miles apart, but that does not make for such good storytelling.

The Rollright Stones

Various further embellishments have been attached to the tale of Walton's murder. Later tellings include the fabrication that his face was frozen in horror at whatever sight met his dying gaze, and that his body was discovered beneath an ill-omened willow tree. Tales like-wise abound regarding Walton's habit of using toads to menace neighbours by “blasting” their crops, although this directly contradicts the assertion that he quarrelled with no one.

The Rowan Tree - traditionally linked to the underworld

In November 1952, a group from the Birmingham Psychic Society attempted to make contact with Walton in a séance planned to take place at the sight of the murder. Not surprisingly, no light as to the identity of the murderer was shed. The event did not pass without incident however; a local councillor who supported the undertaking took some soil from the scene – after that, he reported a train of bad luck until he finally got rid of the tainted specimen. 

Even Fabian himself was not immune. The unsolved case remained with him, and over the following decades, his retelling of events slowly changed to fit the growing web of legend. In his final mention of the case, he too asserted that black magic had played a part in Walton's end, an element noticeably absent from his official reports and earlier references.

There is little, if any, proof that witchcraft played a part in the murder of Charles Walton. What it does bring home is the need we all have for answers, the deep-seated desire to explain and make sense of events that seem to happen with no rhyme or reason - and, fascinatingly, that people are ready to blame the witch for misfortune whatever the century.