Unnatural Knocks and Noises
In February of 1905, Welsh newspapers reported that poltergeist phenomena was manifesting in Lampeter. The haunting occurred at the residence of H.W. Howell, a solicitor and local court clerk. (In some articles, his name is spelled Howells.) There are earlier reports, but a two-part article published in the Evening Express on the 13th and the 14th is especially insightful. According to this article, Howell’s wife was the first to hear something odd: “tramping of feet and other sounds in the garret.” Next, a servant named Jane — while attending a sick eleven-year-old son named Jack — reported knocking in the wall by the bed. The skeptical Mr. Howell attributed the noise to rats, but once he returned downstairs that same night, he heard more knocking. He explains:
I rapped on the wall and said, 'Come out, old chap, let's have a look at you.' This was said in a sarcastic way, and in derision, and before I came to the last word I heard a terrific noise near the water-closet. It was exactly as if they had got into a rage and had resented my remark. The noise was tremendous.
And the night of annoyances wasn’t over. More knocking rose in Jack’s room, “as if there were two rappers,” and it continued until daylight. “I was simply flabbergasted,” explains Mr. Howell, whose usual skepticism was crumbling. In hindsight, claims made by his servants and sons — claims about having heard rustling dresses and having seen both “a lady in black” and “a woman dressed in a long white robe” — now carried much more weight.
Afterward, Jack was moved to the nursery, but the knocking followed him. It was then discovered that the uninvited guest could repeat whatever number of knocks it was given. It could also drum the beats of familiar tunes. This continued until Mr. Howell moved his son into his dressing-room — but then the boy’s bed started to move, the headboard banging against the wall. Mr. Howell was able to subdue it by grabbing the bed frame, but it resumed as soon as he let go.
Over the next several nights, neighbors arrived and confirmed the phenomena. A clerk from Howell’s office was among them, and this man asked if Jack was always present when the manifestations occurred. “They have knocked when Jack is not in the room,” Howell replied, “but the sound was not so perfect.” As is often the case with poltergeists, a young person seems to act as a catalyst or medium.
The Clergy Arrive (with Others)
When the Right Reverend Dr. John Lloyd, Bishop of Swansea (1847-1915) arrived — with the Rev. Charles Harris, a lecturer in Theology at St. David’s College in Lampeter, at his side — the two joined a long line of clergymen called on to act as ghost hunters. In Britain, the tradition goes back at least as far as the famous Drummer of Tedworth case, which drew the attention of Joseph Glanvill (1636-1680), Chaplain to Charles the Second and Rector of Bath Abbey Church. A century later, Samuel Johnson joined the group that debunked the Cock Lane case, but the team leader was the Rev. Stephen Aldrich (?-1796), rector of St. John’s church in Clerkenwell. In Lloyd’s era, Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) was another clergyman with an interest in ghosts (as I discuss here). I’m not sure if Lloyd was among the last of the British ecclesiastic ghost hunters, but he certainly wasn’t the first.
That two-part article goes on to describe how Lloyd and Harris — with a few others — crowded around Jack in his bed in the hope that the spirit would resume knocking. The goal was to establish communication in a fashion that had served in the Cock Lane ghost of about 150 years earlier. In Cock Lane, the alleged ghost was revealed to have manifested in order to accuse a man of murder. Things went even further in Lampeter. Once contact was made — with three knocks for yes and one for no — it was disclosed that a double murder had occurred in the house — and money remained hidden in the chimney! Strictly speaking, we are no longer in poltergeist territory. This is a spirit (or spirits) with unfinished business.
A later article in the Welsh Gazette and West Wales Advertiser offers a transcript of the conversation with the knocking spirit that divulges those secrets about murder and money. One might see the questioning as “leading the witness” in spots, for example in this exchange:
What is the matter with the house? Is there anything in the way or buried?
Yes.
In what form is it? Is it money?
Yes.
If young Jack were playing a trick, as the Evening Express reporter hints in the end, it’s easy to see that he was giving the audience what they wanted.
The Welsh Gazette article includes an interview with Lloyd, and he gives his opinion of the haunting. “My mind is open,” he explains; “I could not account for the taps. … One does not like even to suggest there was any collusion, because one has no ground for it.” Perhaps the bishop departed from the Howells’ house with only questions about the case because, in his concluding remarks, he asks if
we are not taught by the Bible that there are spirits, and that they are somewhere? But as to whether they are allowed to hold communication with us is another question. There is nothing in the Bible to show that they are not allowed. The presumption may be the other way.
In other words, Lloyd made no profound assessment of the visitation. He took no decisive action regarding it. He came, he heard, he left befuddled.
In the Weeks to Follow
After a series of informal investigations such as Lloyd’s, the Howells limited who would be allowed in — and, at the same time, the manifestations seemed to quiet some. For instance, a March 2nd article in the Evening Express says, “Lampeter spook matters have cooled down considerably,” and one in The Cambrian from the following day notes that “there is an old woman now in the neighborhood who declares that years ago when in service with another family in the same house she heard similar manifestations.” The case was creeping backward instead of moving forward.
But on April 17th, the Evening Express reported that the spirit was “again busy” and the Howells had contacted the landlord about dismantling the chimney where the money was still believed to be hidden. Intriguingly, on the 22nd, the Weekly Mail said a cap and “other remains of human clothing” had been discovered under the attic floor, but permission to “open” the chimney had still not been granted.
With a grumble and a mutter, I lose the historical trail at this point. At least — for now.
Should Lloyd Be in the Ghost Hunter Hall of Fame?
On the one hand, I would love to induct the first Welsh ghost hunter into that honored corridor. On the other, Lloyd’s contribution to the long legacy of this branch of paranormal investigation is rather minimal. I mentioned how he was far from the first cleric to go wraith wrangling, and this whole case has a “been there, done that” feel to it. It seems as if it should have happened 50 to 100 years earlier, right down to the “purposeful” ghost. (I discuss the recognition of purposeless ghosts in the late-1800s here and here.) Even young Jack Howell echoes Elizabeth Parsons in the Cock Lane case — and let’s toss in the Fox Sisters of Rochester of the mid-1800s. Was the boy a genuine medium or a toe-cracking prankster?
Until I find more information, say, about Lloyd taking a firmer stance on the Howell haunting or about his involvement in other ghostly matters, I’m afraid his place in the Hall of Fame must remain as a spectral visitor only. You are also invited to visit, whether corporeal or otherwise.
— Tim
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