A Christmas ghost, 1716
What was Old Jeffrey's game?
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The rector’s wife explained how it began:
On the first of December, our maid heard, at the door of the dining-room, several dismal groans, like a person in extremes, at the point of death… Some nights (two or three) after, several of the family heard a strange knocking in divers places, usually three or four knocks at a time, and then stayed a little. This continued every night for a fortnight; sometimes it was in the garret, but most commonly in the nursery or green chamber.
At first the household didn’t want to bother the rector himself with all this, fearing he would see it as a portent of his own death. His wife explained:
But when it began to be so troublesome, both day and night, that few or none of the family durst be alone, I resolved to tell him of it, being minded he should speak to it. At first he would not believe but somebody did it to alarm us; but the night after, as soon as he was in bed, it knocked loudly nine times, just by his bedside. He rose, and went to see if he could find out what it was, but could see nothing. Afterwards he heard it as the rest.
This account is the earliest we have of the strange events, written to her eldest son, Samuel (away teaching in London), on 12th January 1717, within a few weeks therefore and fresh in the mind. She continued:
One night it made such a noise in the room over our heads, as if several people were walking then run up and down stairs, and was so outrageous that we thought the children would be frighted, so your father and I rose, and went down in the dark to light a candle. Just as we came to the bottom of the broad stairs, having hold of each other, on my side there seemed as if somebody had emptied a bag of money at my feet; and on his, as if all the bottles under the stairs (which were many) had been dashed in a thousand pieces. We passed through the hall into the kitchen, and got a candle, and went to see the children, whom we found asleep.
The family decided to get some support, turning to a friend and fellow priest, the Rev Joseph Hoole from the next village (he has been described as “not a learned man”):1
The next night your father would get Mr Hoole to lie at our house, and we all sat together till one or two o’clock in the morning, and heard the knocking as usual. Sometimes it would make a noise like the winding up of a jack, at other times, as that night Mr. Hoole was with us, like a carpenter planing deals; but most commonly it knocked thrice and stopped, and then thrice again, and so many hours together. We persuaded your father to speak, and try if any voice would be heard. One night about six o’clock he went into the nursery in the dark, and at first heard several deep groans, then knocking. He adjured it to speak if it had power, and tell him why it troubled his house, but no voice was heard, but it knocked thrice aloud.
Her letter ends saying the strange events ended on 28th December (though other letters refer to occasional knockings during January too), adding, “We have various conjectures what this may mean.”
Other details came to be revealed by members of the household. For example, Susannah Jr told her brother Samuel, “I heard something walk by my bedside, like a man in a long night gown.” Emilia, who had christened the spirit ‘Old Jeffrey’, said “there was no quiet after ten at night”. There was even talk of a strange shape under the rector’s bed, like a headless badger. It was witchcraft, said Emilia.
We can explore further conjectures shortly, but let’s back up and introduce the household. The rector was Samuel Wesley, born in Dorset in 1662, educated at both Oxford and Cambridge. He ended up as a priest and, after various earlier posts (including an unhappy one at sea), he became rector of Epworth in Lincolnshire in 1695, where he stayed for the rest of his life.
Samuel got mixed up in controversies on several occasions. Despite his own family background in dissenting religious groups, and a relatively high number of nonconformists in his parish, he veered to standard Anglicanism. He made enemies locally (and beyond), and on two occasions there appear to have been arson attacks on the rectory – the second in 1709 necessitated major rebuilding (and the rescue of his children). He was also imprisoned briefly for debt, probably thanks to the whispers of his critics. Meanwhile, there were divisions in his own house.
Samuel had married Susannah Annesley in 1688. She too was from dissenting stock but now an Anglican. She bore him at least 17 children (she herself was the youngest of 25!), ten of them surviving childhood. And as a Jacobite supporter of the exiled Stuart dynasty (which had tried to regain power again only a year before the ghost manifested), she was cross with Samuel for his support for William of Orange. At one point it is said that Samuel refused to live with her unless she abandoned her belief in the divine right of kings.
A few years before the ghostly goings-on, Samuel was frequently in London, trying to gain influence on Church policy. The cost of these trips hit the family hard. Meanwhile, Susannah started holding family prayer meetings which began to be attended by neighbours. She was ticked off by Samuel, and her reply, sent on 6th February 1712, is admirably robust.2 She pointed out in no uncertain terms that she had been left holding the (many) babies: “in your long absence I cannot but look upon every soul you leave under my charge as a talent committed to me under a trust.”
And if you haven’t twigged already, Samuel and Susannah are now most famous for their children, in particular John and Charles, the founders of Methodism. Both of these brothers were away at school at the time of the ghost, but in later life John was notably interested in the events.3
That the story of the Epworth poltergeist has survived is thanks in part to Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) – the same chap who discovered oxygen. He published a collection of letters by the Wesleys which had been given to him by the Rev Samuel Badcock, a friend of the family.4
A week after Susannah wrote to Samuel Jr, he replied with a sensible list of questions any good sceptic might ask. If you’re a fan of the Uncanny podcast like I am, you might well want such questions answered for every haunting:
Those who are so wise as not to believe any supernatural occurrences, though ever so well attested, could find a hundred questions to ask about those strange noises… Was there a new maid, or man, in the house, that might play tricks? Was there no body above in the garrets, when the walking was there? Did all the family hear it together when they were in one room, or at one time? Did it seem to all to be in the same place, at the same time? Could not cats, or rats, or dogs, be the sprights? Was the whole family asleep, when my father and you went down stairs?
His mother wrote back a few days later with some attempts to answer them:
…having been formerly troubled with rats, which were frightened away by sounding a horn, I caused a horn to be procured and made them blow it all over the house. But from that night they began to blow, the noises were more loud, and distinct, both day and night, than before…
We had both man and maid new this last Martinmas, yet I do not believe either of them occasioned the disturbance… because they were more affrighted than any body else. Besides, we have often heard the noises when they were in the room by us…
The man, Robert Brown, whom you well know, was most visited by it lying in the garret, and has been often frighted down bare-foot, and almost naked, not daring to stay alone to put on his clothes, nor do I think, if he had any power, he would be guilty of such villainy…
All the family… were asleep when your father and I went down stairs… only we observed that Hetty trembled exceedingly in her sleep, as she always did, before the noise awaked her. It commonly was nearer her than the rest, which she took notice of, and was much frightened, because she thought it had a particular spight at her…
There are curious details about the spirit. Samuel Sr himself noted in an account of the events, which persisted through Christmas week, in his journal: “When we were at prayers, and came to the prayers for King George, and the Prince, it would make a great noise over our heads constantly, whence some of the family called it a Jacobite.”
Hetty (short for Mehetabel) was 18 or 19 at the time – a decade later she too would fall out with her father irreconcilably when he objected to a lawyer she wanted to wed and then pushed her into a poor marriage with a drunken plumber. In his Memoirs of the Wesley Family (1836), Adam Clarke wrote of her:
From her childhood she was gay and sprightly; full of mirth, good humour, and keen wit. She indulged this disposition so much, that it was said to have given great uneasiness to her parents.
It’s not surprising, then, that in a household with half a dozen girls and young women, they have been accused of perpetrating the deeds, Hetty in particular. Priestley thought instead that it was the work of impish servants and neighbours, and advocated a rational approach:
…it is to be observed, that, though the narratives of the most honest witnesses imply something supernatural, we are not to conclude that the facts cannot be accounted for in a natural way. Because the observers, being particularly struck with what appears most extraordinary, are apt to overlook the most important circumstances…5
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (who we’ve met on the theme of ghosts before) concluded “the noises were purely subjective, and partook of the nature of a contagious nervous disease”.
There are curiosities, certainly. Hardish to explain is this note from the rector in his journal: “I have been thrice pushed by an invisible power, once against the corner of my desk in the study…”
Adam Clarke meanwhile reproduced a note from John – written when? – claiming that strange knockings were heard long before Old Jeffrey was named, beginning one time when his siblings Samuel and Suky (Susannah) had quarrelled.
And here’s an oddity.6 In 1750 – 34 years after the Jeffrey events – Emilia, now Mrs Harper in London, wrote to John:
…that wonderful thing, called by us, Jeffrey! You won’t laugh at me for being superstitious, if I tell you how certainly that something calls on me against any extraordinary new affliction: but so little is known of the invisible world that I at least am not able to judge whether it be a friendly or an evil spirit. [her emphasis]
What does that mean? And what do you think was going on?
By William Gibson, a professor of ecclesiastical history – see note below.
John’s article ‘The Haunting of Epworth Rectory’ was published in the Arminian Magazine in 1784 – almost 70 years after the events, and unfortunately somewhat embellished. Note you can visit Epworth Old Rectory as a key site in Methodist history.
Intriguingly, the parcel of letters went missing – in 1785, Priestley wrote to the Gentleman’s Magazine to say “I lent it to some person who visited me” and appealed for its return. Presumably this was successful, as he published the collection in 1791. (Side note: the letters about the haunting were all transcribed by Samuel Wesley Jr, so the originals have never been part of this story.)
My source for the letters is Priestley’s book. This website offers a great presentation of them along a timeline, along with an analysis of the suspects. Chapter 8 of Gibson’s 2021 book Samuel Wesley and the Crisis of Tory Piety, 1685–1720 (OUP) sets the social context. Adam Clarke’s book is here.
There’s another oddity too… In his 1866 book, The Life and Times of the Rev Samuel Wesley, Luke Tyerman referred to an 1864 edition of Wesleyan Times (which I haven’t managed to track down yet) as a source for a claim that strange noises at Epworth had led to the incumbent rector living in London. This feels dubious, though: I have traced that rector as being the Hon Charles Dundas, who was buried at Epworth after 39 years in the parish.
I like “hardish” (as in “hardish to explain”)