Scratching Fanny - The Cock Lane Ghost (Part I)

Scratching Fanny, the Cock Lane Ghost, attracted a huge amount of attention during the eighteenth century, so it's probably not surprising that she has now attracted mine... with me being interested in all things ghostly at the minute.

In January 1762, news spread like wildfire about the strange goings on at a house in Cock Lane, a backstreet near Saint Sepulchre's Church, London. The house belonged to the deputy clerk of that church, one Richard Parsons, who made a little extra income by letting out rooms within his home. One of his lodgers was William Kent, from Norfolk, who moved to Cock Lane in 1759.

William Kent's wife, Elizabeth Lynes, had died in childbirth in 1756 and he had taken up with her sister, Frances Lynes, who was known as Fanny. When Kent moved from Norfolk to London, Fanny eventually followed him. Church Law did not allow the couple to marry, as it was considered improper for a man to marry his sister-in-law because she was his sister by marriage, but they lived at the Cock Lane house together as man and wife nevertheless.

One night, when Mr Kent was away in the country, Fanny had Mr Parsons' daughter, Elizabeth, spend the night in her room. Elizabeth was described as a ‘little artful girl about eleven years of age’ (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography). During the night, the two were disturbed by 'violent noises', which were later, according to The London Magazine (January, 1762), assumed by Mrs Parsons to have come from the shop of a nearby shoe-maker. When Fanny was disturbed by the same noises on a Sunday night, when the shoe-maker was known not to be working, an alternative cause was sought. Several people were asked to witness the disturbance for themselves, including one Rev. Mr Linden, but no cause for it could be found.

A disagreement arose between Mr Kent and his landlord; Parsons had borrowed twelve pounds from Kent and had failed to pay it back, resulting in the latter deciding to sue the former. In light of the unpaid debt, and the continuing nightly disturbances, Mr Kent determined to leave Mr Parsons household and did so immediately, taking lodgings nearby before moving to Bartlett Court, off Red Lyon Street, in Clerkenwell. One week later, on the 25th January 1760, Fanny, who was by then heavily pregnant, became ill and a physician by the name of Cooper was called. The following day she was diagnosed with a very severe case of smallpox. She was tended to by Dr Cooper, and an apothecary by the name of Jones, but she succumbed to her illness on the evening of the 2nd February 1760.

The banging noises at Mr Parsons' house in Cock Lane had ceased immediately after Kent's departure, but the disturbances started up again two years later, in January 1762, shortly after Kent successfully sued Parsons for the outstanding debt. Knocking and scratching could be heard in the room where Mr Parsons' daughters slept, and the eldest girl, Elizabeth, was said to experience violent fits. Elizabeth claimed that she had seen the ghost of the late Fanny Lynes, then a publican claimed to have been witness to it too. Mr Parsons added his claim to the other two; Elizabeth had seen a ghost with no hands, the publican and Mr Parsons' spirit had appeared complete with hands and was illuminated. Mr Parsons, with the aid of the Methodist John Moore, assistant preacher at Saint Sepulchre's, put questions to the ghost, who answered graciously by knocking on the bedpost, or by making scratching noises when she was upset. The knockings, one for yes and two for no, informed those present that Fanny had been poisoned by William Kent by means of 'red arsenic'.

Above: Excited spectators outside the home of the Cock Lane Ghost.

The news of Fanny's murder spread, and the house in Cock Lane soon drew a large number of visitors, all eager to witness Elizabeth's convulsions and the bangings and scratchings of its resident restless spirit, by that time dubbed Scratching Fanny. Horace Walpole wrote of the ghost that 'a drunken parish clerk set it on foot out of revenge, the Methodists have adopted it, and the whole town of London think of nothing else' (W. S. Lewis, ed., The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, New Haven, CT, 1941). Séances, conducted by one Mary Frazer (a relative of Parsons) were held within the room which saw the most activity, and the street outside was sometimes impassible due to the large number of spectators present at these events. Even the Duke of York put in an appearance.

To be continued...