Given the sheer age of London and the number of people that have passed through its gates over the centuries, it would be difficult to imagine it not being haunted. Though, as the tale of the Hammersmith Ghost will show, ghosts aren’t always what they appear to be.
This tale takes us to 1803. George III has been on the throne since 1760. Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Robert Stephenson have been born this year. The elements iridium, osmium, and rhodium have been discovered. Yet Hammersmith is still a rural area, lying to the west of London on the River Thames. It marks the point where London meets the countryside.
December will be marked by sightings of a ghost, which will ultimately end in tragedy. Let’s explore the tale of the Hammersmith Ghost.
The Haunting Begins
It all began, or so they said, with a pregnant woman in a graveyard. A tall figure dressed in white suddenly loomed between the gravestones. It reached for her and even grasped her in a spectral embrace. The woman, so they said, fainted, and died a few days later from the shock (Westwood 2005: 467).
A brewer’s servant, Thomas Groom, later testified that he’d encountered the ghost in Hammersmith Churchyard. The ghost grabbed him around the throat, almost choking him. When Groom tried to grab the ghost in return, he felt something soft, before the ghost vanished (Johnson’s Sunday Monitor 1804: 3).
Other sightings were remarkably similar; people reported seeing the ghost of a man with a cut throat. He wore either a shroud and had both horns and glass eyes, or he wore an animal skin (Westwood 2005: 467).
Sightings continued all month. One story claimed it jumped out before a wagon, causing the horses to bolt (Westwood 2005: 467). According to the popular story at the time, the ghost was that of a local man who’d cut his own throat a year before (Davies 2007: 21). Weirdly, despite the fact the sightings occurred throughout December 1803, the newspapers never mentioned it until January 1804. We’ll see why in a moment.
Yet the sightings had two different effects on the people of Hammersmith. Partially because people’s attitudes to ghosts had changed by this point.
While some people were too scared to go out at night, young men saw ghosts as a way to prove their masculinity. As a result, the Hammersmith Ghost became a target for young men with a point to prove (Clarke 2013: 168). Groups of young men roamed around Hammersmith every evening, possibly unsure if they were looking for a ghost or spoiling for a fight.
Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson suggest these vigilantes actually suspected a hoax. Rather than looking for a ghost, they were hunting the prankster (2005: 467).
Given the fixation with ghosts appearing in white, anyone seen in light-coloured clothing was fair game.
The Tragedy Occurs
One such man was Thomas Millwood, a bricklayer (also spelled as Milward in some sources). At the time, the traditional bricklayer uniform was linen trousers, a flannel waistcoat, and an apron – all in white. One evening, he walked home as usual, and a carriage passed in the road. Its occupants, a man and two ladies, gave up a cry, “There goes the ghost!” Millwood apparently swore at them and threatened to punch the man.
His mother-in-law feared the mobs and warned him to wear something else on his way home. Millwood saw no reason to change out of his work clothes and continued to wear his white uniform at dusk.
It was a mistake. On the night of 3 January 1804, he was walking home along Black Lion Lane. An excise officer, Francis Smith, had been drinking at the White Hart pub nearby with William Girdler, a local watchman. They’d been gossiping about the ghost, which by now was said to have frightened a locksmith’s wife to death, and made two others ill with shock.
Emboldened by drink, they decided to put the ghost to rest once and for all. Girdler and Smith separated at the pub, so they could cover a wider area, and even arranged a word so they could identify each other, and not shoot each other (Davies 2007: 21). I know, the idea of shooting a ghost seems stupid even by early 19th century standards. But remember, they had cooked up this plan in the pub.
Smith spotted Millwood. He cried out twice, demanding the figure identify itself. Milward didn’t respond and continued to walk along the street. Smith assumed the figure must be the ghost and shot him with a fowling gun. At least, Smith claimed Millwood didn’t reply. Smith gave himself up to the magistrate when he realised Millwood was no ghost. While Smith was found guilty of murder, his death sentence was reduced to a year in prison. In July 1804, the king pardoned him. It seems the circumstances prompted him to take pity (Clarke 2013: 170).
But what of the ghost?
The ghost turned out to be a hoax. After Millwood’s murder, the magistrates hauled in a shoemaker named James Graham for questioning. He admitted he’d been the Hammersmith Ghost. Apparently, he was frustrated with his apprentices for telling his young children ghost stories. Wanting revenge for the children being frightened, he hid beneath a blank one night and leapt out at the apprentices on their way home. Thus, the ghost panic began (Davies 2007: 175).
Some writers definitively claim the Hammersmith Ghost did frighten the locksmith’s wife to death. Others suggest this was merely a rumour. The fact that the wife is never named suggests that the latter is more likely. One news article from 1804 described how the pregnant woman had indeed been shocked by the ghost, but was bedbound – not dead (Caledonian Mercury 1804: 2).
But some people still think there is a ghost in St Paul’s churchyard in Hammersmith. According to legend, it appears every fifty years on a full moon at midnight.
The West London Observer published an article about it in July 1955, and the police had to cordon off the churchyard to hold back the crowds (Westwood 2005: 470). No one actually saw anything at midnight, but if you believe the stories, people saw a figure in white among the tombstones at 1 am (Westwood 2005: 470). It seems the ghost observed British Summer Time! (West London Observer 1955: 12)
Was it really the ghost? One letter writer to the West London Observer noted its movements “were too jerky and too much like those of anybody who might have been shrouded in a white sheet down to the ground and unable to walk properly for fear of treading on it” (Nickell 1955: 1).
Even in 1976, the Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette discussed the apparent haunting of the Black Lion pub on Black Lion Lane (1976: 14). The pub is still there and in operation!
In many ways, the Hammersmith Ghost is a tale of hysteria.
In January 1804, a Coldstream Guards soldier claimed to have seen a headless ghost near the Recruit House in St James’ Park between 1 and 2 am. Other soldiers all signed claims that they too saw the ghost. The Times later solved the mystery since two schoolboys had set up a magic lantern projector in an empty house. Far from seeing a ghost, the soldiers had seen a projection (Clarke 2013: 170). Would they have taken such fright had it not been for the Hammersmith Ghost scare the month before? Who knows.
Yet it’s also important to note the popularity of magic lantern shows and the Phantasmagoria at the time. The Hammersmith Ghost itself appeared soon after its conclusion in a magic lantern lecture by George Tweedie (Davies 2007: 206).
Not only that, but in 1824, a new figure appeared, dubbed the Hammersmith Monster. This one was frighteningly real, and leapt out at women in unlit streets. The figure scratched their faces, although he turned out to be a farmer from Harrow. The magistrates sent him to the House of Correction (Westwood 2005: 467).
And in 1832, another figure began attacking women in the lanes around Hammersmith and Acton. This one apparently wore a white garment and had long claws, or nails (Westwood 2005: 467). Even worse, he could scale walls to escape after terrifying his victims.
Interestingly, one newspaper article claimed that the ghost “breathed fire and smoke” (Caledonian Mercury 1804: 2). And it’s worth bearing in mind that the ‘first’ sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack happened in 1837. Did Jack take his inspiration from the Hammersmith Ghost?
What do we make of the Hammersmith Ghost?
We might look back at the Hammersmith Ghost from our 21st-century vantage point and shake our heads. How could people have been so silly as to roam the streets in mobs, looking for a ghost? What were they expecting to do to it if they even found it?
Yet we’ve got enough proof that even now, people can be sparked into terrible action by misinformation, and disinformation, alike.
We’ll never really know if they were looking for a ghost, or looking for a prankster. Either way, we might never have known about this bizarre episode in London’s history without the murder of Millwood. That prompted the newspapers to take an interest.
The Hammersmith Ghost also helped to codify the image of a ghost as a figure under a sheet (see above). A print circulated showing a figure raising its arms beneath a sheet, and this idea continues even now (Owens 2017: 167).
So the Hammersmith Ghost, while apparently not real, may not sit easily alongside phantom royals at Hampton Court Palace, or the ghostly Oliver Cromwell in Red Lion Square. But it feeds into the history of the ghost story…and maybe even Spring-Heeled Jack…
Do you think the ghost in the churchyard is real, or just part of the hoax?
References
Caledonian Mercury (1804), ‘The Hammersmith Ghost’, Caledonian Mercury, 14 January, p. 2.
Clarke, Roger (2013), A Natural History of Ghosts: 500 Years of Hunting for Proof, London: Penguin.
Davies, Owen (2007), The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts, London: Palgrave.
Hammersmith & Shepherd’s Bush Gazette (1976), ‘It’s Your Round’, Hammersmith & Shepherd’s Bush Gazette, 22 January, p. 14.
Johnson’s Sunday Monitor (1804), ‘Hammersmith Ghost’, Johnson’s Sunday Monitor, 15 January, p. 3.
Nickell, G. C. (1955), ‘The Hammersmith Ghost Story’, West London Observer, 12 August, p. 1.
Owens, Susan (2017), The Ghost: A Cultural History, London: TATE.
West London Observer (1955), ”WLO’ scoop wins national praise’, West London Observer, 26 August, p. 12.
Westwood, Jennifer and Simpson, Jacqueline (2005), The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England’s Legends, London: Penguin.
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