The Man Behind the Door - A Brockley Ghost Story

For Halloween, here's a ghost story written by Elliot O'Donnell for the London 'Weekly Dispatch' and then reprinted in the Australian 'Express and Telegraph', 6 August 1910.

The location of the events is given as '200Y Brockley Road, SW', said to be haunted by 'the phantasm of a tall man in a frock coat and top hat'. The house number is obscure (perhaps the Y was to indicate that it was somewhere in the 200s rather than identify a specific house) but there was no Brockley Road in SW then or now so it must refer to the SE4 one, something reinforced by the mention of St Johns Road.

(Indeed the story is retold in his book 'More Haunted Houses of London' and the location is given as 'Brockley Road, SE'. In that version he says that he first heard about it from the house's former inhabitants at a friend's house in Norwood)

The investigator gains access to the house and  spends an evening there with his dog, Ghoul, and apart from some footsteps on the stairs notices nothing out of the ordinary. Returning a second time though he feels 'the presence of the occult was now most marked'.  After the clock strikes 12, the front door flies open and he perceives 'a tall, pale luminous figure... dressed in a frock coat and top hat, with jet black whiskers and brows, and the most appalling white skin and gleaming eyes... one the most perfect and unusual examples of pychic phenomena I have ever witnessed'. He concludes that this must be the 'earth-bound phantasm of Percy Stephens' who had apparently lived there before killing himself  'over the cliffs at Ramsgate' in despair at his son's wayward behaviour.

Elliot O'Donnell (1872-1965) - pictured below - was an Irish-born 'ghost hunter' and author of numerous books on ghosts and related matters. Like many of his trade, his reputation is controversial and the line between fact and fiction in his work decidedly uncertain. In this case it is notable that in the version of the story retold in 'More Haunted Houses of London' (1920), he gives a completely different explanation of the ghost. This time it is apparently the spirit of  a Mr Mills, who drowned himself in the River after his wife left him for a 'handsome foreigner'.  You might say this calls into the question the whole story... but hey you can suspend your disbelief for a moment on a dark Halloween night!

The Devil of Deptford - a poltergeist tale from 1699

For Halloween here's a spooky story from late 17th century Deptford. 'The Devil of Deptford' is a pamphlet by the clergyman Edward Fowler.  According to the historian Peter Elmer,  the 'haunted' house in question 'almost certainly' belonged to 'Henry Godman (d.1702) who combined preaching with medical practice and had resided at Deptford since at least 1672' (The Miraculous Conformist: Valentine Greatrakes, the Body Politic, and the Politics of Healing in Restoration Britain, OUP, 2013). Looking at old maps I believe that Back Lane was near to Deptford Green about where Gilbert House now stands.

'The Devil of Deptford... being a true relation of the strange disturbances, ludicrous feats and malicious pranks of an evil spirit in the house of Mr G. living in Back Lane at Deptford near London, in April and May 1699. The truth whereof is known, and can be attested to by a great number of the inhabitants of that town...

there are evil spirits or devils, which do infest this lower world, and of which we have a fresh convincing argument in the following instance: all the particulars whereof were acted, not in the dark, or at midnight, but at Noon-day in the face of the sun, in the sight of a great many persons, and the effects thereof were felt by divers of the family

Upon Saturday April 25 1699... about Twelve a Clock at Noon, a stone was thrown against the parlour window next to the street, which breaking the glass came into the room.The boys that were in the street were charged with doing it, but they all denyed it; when instantly another stone was thrown, which broke the glass likewise... Soon after for many days together a great number of stones were thrown against the back and side windows next to the garden, seeming to come from the fields behind... At length they nailed strong deal board on the outside of the broken windows, after which the disturbance ceased from without, but began within the house. One time all the china cups and glasses were removed from the mantel-piece in the parlour, and set on the floor... Several pewter plates were seen to come out of the kitchen below stairs into the parlour of themselves... A candle and candlestick being left in the dining room, which was locked, was thrown upstairs, and their looking out at the noise found it there, and yet the door continued locked as before'.

(the full text may be available at Early English Books online,
if anyone has a login)

Frightened to death by Brockley Cemetery: more Spring Heeled Jack?

Brockley Cemetery, then known as Deptford Cemetery, was the scene of the strange case of a young woman being 'frightened to death' in the late 19th century. The British Medical Journal, April 7 1888, reported:

'The serious effects of shock to the nervous system, especially by fright, are constantly witnessed... Death itself is, fortunately, comparatively rare. It is reported in the newspapers to have occurred at Brockley, on March 21st, in the case of a girl, aged 18, who was frightened to death by a man dressed as a ghost, near the Deptford cemetery.

She arrived home after her fright, in the road by the Deptford Cemetery, at Brockley, looking very ill and excited. She is said to have taken off her waterproof, drawn a chair to the table to take supper, then fallen forward with her head on the table, and died after a short struggle. Mr Hollis, the medical man who was called in, made a post mortem examination, and reported that all the organs were healthy, but that the state of the heart, combined with the fright, would account for death... It is to be hoped the miscreant will be discovered, and receive the utmost punishment which the law allows. The coroner stated at the inquest that five other persons had been frightened at the same spot. We do not know why the jury did not record a verdict of 'Manslaughter' against some unknown person'.

The details resemble the Peckham Ghost panic of 1872, when a number of people were frightened by what was generally believed to be a man dressed up as a ghost in the Peckham/Dulwich/Herne Hill area. The Camberwell & Peckham Times (19 Oct 1872) reported one such sighting:

'He appeared...on [14 October 1872] to Sarah Ann Foster, a girl living opposite the Crystal Palace Tavern, and charing at Mr Smith’s, in Lordship-lane. It appears that she had been to fetch the supper beer, and on her return she was required to go on another errand, when she complained to her mistress that there was a tall man waiting in the road. Mrs Smith remonstrated with her on the folly of being frightened, and Mr Smith said he would watch her from the window. She started on her errand, but had not left the front garden when a figure in white rose from behind the fence. She screamed loudly, and rushed towards the doorway, and was clasped in the arms of her master, he having seen the apparition from the window, and in rushing out caught his foot in something which threw him forward, and instead of catching the ghost he caught the girl in his arms, who, thinking it was the unearthly spirit that had got hold of her, went into a fit, in which she remained two hours, and is now seriously ill. The description given by Mr Smith and the girl is as follows: – About six foot high, dressed in long overcoat (having white lining, which when thrown open, aided by a white waistcoat and outstretched arms, give the desired effect) a dark felt hat, and a plume of black feathers, with which he hides his ignominious features.’ [presumably this was the Crystal Palace Tavern on Crystal Palace Road, East Dulwich].

A local man, Joseph Munday, was later arrested and accused of being behind the Peckham Ghost incidents.

The Peckham events have often been linked to the wider 19th century legend of 'Spring Heeled Jack' - a monster or dressed up man (depending on interpretation) who similarly appeared to terrorise people, including a number of sightings in South London. For instance in Dulwich  the daughter of Plutarch Dickinson was reported to have been 'nearly deprived of her senses’ and taken to bed ‘in a very dangerous state’ after seeing a  figure 'enveloped in a white sheet and blue fire' (The Sun, 20 January 1838, cited in Mike Dash's overview of the phenomenon).

So perhaps the Brockley events should also be considered in this context. The man dressed as a ghost may have been imitating  these earlier scares, inspired by the accounts in Penny Dreadfuls such as 'Spring Heeled Jack: The Terror of London' (advert above is from 1886).  Though doubtless others may have more exotic explanations.

Deptford spooks

Following on from the recent Brockley ghost tales, here's a couple from Deptford. The first comes care of Old Deptford History which recently reproduced a story from the Woolwich & Charlton Mercury 1994 (reprinted later in the Fortean Times). It tells of a resident of Watergate Street in Deptford who apparently suffered around that time from eery footsteps, doors slamming and a flying mirror, not to mention the sighting of a ghostly 'little girl with blonde curly hair'. The poltergeist activity was reported as coming to an end following the intervention of Gary Stock, a medium from Thames Street, Greenwich.

A more sceptical account of a Deptford ghost story comes from an interesting book entitled The Lone-Star of Liberia - Being the Outcome of Reflections on Our Own People by Frederick Alexander Durham. Published in 1892, this book by an African man living in London attempted to turn racist attitudes to Africans on their head by arguing that the natives of London were at least as superstitious and credulous as his compatriots.

The story, from 1891, is of a crowd of thousands turning out at St Pauls Church in Deptford to try and spot a rumoured ghost - said spirit apparently no more than a trick of the moonlight on some flyers posted on the church door.

The account remarks 'Just imagine the good people of Deptford believing in Junabaes!' The latter is obviously some kind of ghost, but does anyone know anymore? I googled that word and could find no trace of it.

Update 31 October 2016:

I have found a further account of the 1891 Deptford Ghost, from Maitland Daily Mercry (New South Wales) 15 July 1896. It adds the additional detail that 'a well-know local man who had committed suicide under somewhat romantic circumstances was at that very time awaiting inquest in the mortuary adjoining' and that this had fuelled belief in 'a ghost garbed in a flowing white sheet':