The Cock Lane Ghost

The story began with a debt. William Kent, a Norfolk innkeeper, lodged with his common-law wife Fanny Lynes at the house of Richard Parsons, parish clerk of St Sepulchre’s, at 20 Cock Lane near Smithfield Market. Kent lent Parsons twelve guineas. Parsons did not repay.

Fanny died of smallpox on February 2, 1760. Nearly two years later, with the debt still unpaid, Parsons publicized a haunting centered on his daughter Elizabeth, aged eleven or twelve. Scratching and knocking sounds came from around her bed. A communication system was developed: one knock for yes, two for no. The “ghost” accused Kent of poisoning Fanny with arsenic.

The Sensation

London went mad. The Duke of York visited, Horace Walpole attended, and Cock Lane became impassable.

The Investigation

On February 1, 1762, Samuel Johnson led a committee to the house. The members included Dr. George Macaulay and the Reverend John Douglas, later Bishop of Salisbury. They visited the church vault containing Fanny’s coffin. The ghost did not respond. Elizabeth was made to keep her hands above the bedclothes. The noises stopped. A maid found a small piece of wood the girl had used to counterfeit the scratching.

Johnson’s conclusion: the child had “some art of making or counterfeiting a particular noise” and “there is no agency of any higher cause.”

On February 25, Oliver Goldsmith published The Mystery Revealed, a pamphlet dismantling the fraud.

The Trial

On July 10, 1762, at Guildhall, the case came before Lord Chief Justice Mansfield. Kent sued Parsons, his wife, Reverend Moore, and accomplices for conspiracy to charge him with murder. Fanny’s doctors testified she died of smallpox. The jury returned guilty verdicts after fifteen minutes.

Parsons: two years in prison and pilloried three times, including at the end of Cock Lane. His wife: one year. Reverend Moore: £588 in damages.

The crowds at the pillory collected money for Parsons rather than throwing objects. Charles Dickens referenced the case in the opening of A Tale of Two Cities (1859).

Sources

Bibliography. The same list is held in the article’s frontmatter for the citation tools that read it programmatically.

• Oliver Goldsmith, The Mystery Revealed (25 February 1762)
• Samuel Johnson, published report of the investigation (1762)
• Trial records, Guildhall, London, 10 July 1762
• Douglas Grant, The Cock Lane Ghost (1965)