… The two following letters are from Mr Bristow, now a master joiner, to Professor Sidgwick: –
Stordale, Withington Road, Whalley Range, Manchester. June 27th, 1891.
Dear Sir, I have pleasure in complying with your request to be furnished with an account of certain “Strange experiences and eerie phenomena” which occurred several years ago at the village of Swanland, some few miles from Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and which are referred to by Mr Hebblewhite in his letter to you. The building in which the disturbances took place was of one storey, about 10 ft. high, with three slender tie-beams placed across at intervals, and was quite open to the roof, its length being about 40 ft., and its width 17ft or 18ft.
It was a joiner’s shop, in which I served an apprenticeship which had expired some 12 or 15 months prior to the occurrences in question.
The building was quite detached, being bounded on the one side by a country road, whilst the other (in the centre of which was the doorway) faced a grass field, beyond which stood the nearest building in that direction, some 500 yards away. Down the centre, commencing at one end, were arranged two joiners’ benches which, placed end to end, extended about half the length of the shop, leaving the other half a comparatively open space; a couple of small benches only being fixed to the wall, which were at the time unoccupied.
On the forenoon of the day when the disturbances commenced I could, from my position at the bench near the wall, observe every movement of my view of the doorway and its approaches, when the man on my right suddenly started up, saying, “You fellows had better keep your pieces of wood to yourselves, and get on with your work,” and on our asking him he meant, he replied, “You know very well what I mean; one of you has what pelted this piece of wood at me,” picking up at the same time a small piece about an inch or an inch and a-half square.
The two of us protested we had done nothing of the kind. the other man, I was certain, had never for a moment ceased working. Neither had I. The subject, being allowed to drop, was soon forgotten, when, after the lapse of a very few minutes, the second man started up as suddenly as the first one had done, exclaiming, “Now you are at me; this piece” (pointing to a rough block not larger than a match-box lying at his feet) “has come at me, and there is nobody for it but you,” meaning, of course, myself.
There being two to one I had to bear the blame, my emphatic denial notwithstanding. I, therefore, laughingly said, “You have each had your piece, it is my turn next.” The words were scarcely out of my mouth when a piece came sailing along and gave me a gentle dig in the ribs. “I’ve got it at last,” I said. “There is something mysterious about this which puzzles me beyond measure. Let us have a search for the cause,” and, acting at once on my suggestion, we set to work and searched the nooks and corners, both inside and out, so carefully that even a mouse could scarcely have escaped us, but with no result save disappointment. The mysterious disturber of our peace remained undiscovered.
We discussed the situation, getting more and more perplexed, and then returned to work. I have said that three tie beams ran across the shop, and on one of these beams, just above my head, were piled about a dozen window sashes, which, by reason of their having lain there for several months, were covered with dust and hung with cobwebs. I had barely resumed work when those sashes began to rattle and shake as though they would fall in pieces. We thought, “Now we have something or somebody,” and getting a small ladder I ran up, to find the dust and cobwebs absolutely undisturbed. As I was descending, and my head being on a level with one of the beams, a piece of wood, about the size of two fingers, and which had previously lain on the floor, came dancing along, taking about two feet at a bound, on a thin board which happened to be laid on the beams, making a full stop just at my ear. Hastening down, I said to my companions in bewilderment, “There is something more than a trick in this. There is no one but ourselves near the place, neither has there been for some time. I am half inclined to think there is something of the supernatural about it, what say you?” One of them agreed with me. The other maintained it was only a clever trick being played upon us somehow.
While this little discussion was going on, the two men were standing together some three or four yards in front of me, the sceptical one wearing an old tall silk hat, when I saw a piece come from the far corner of the roof and knock his hat crown partly in. The expression which his suddenly-elongated countenance wore at that moment was a sight not to be easily forgotten. His scepticism seemed to vanish on the instant. Occasionally a piece which had but a short time previously been cut off, falling to the floor, would leap upon the bench and come dancing along the tools. I may just say we were unable to catch or lay hold of any piece when in motion, every attempt so to do was eluded. One piece I distinctly remember taking a leap from the bench to a trestle about three yards away, from which it took a second one to some other object, finally settling down to rest at the end of the shop. Another piece moved in a line straight as the flight of an arrow, about a yard from the floor, striking noiselessly as a feather the door of a closet at the end of the shop in which nails were kept. Anon, a piece would move as though borne along on gently heaving waves. Again a piece would dash out from the most distant part of the roof, in an oblique direction, and quietly drop near your feet. Some three or four hours after those disturbances began, our foreman, an old Scotchman, named John Clark, came to the shop from a new building in course of erection, a considerable distance away, where he and a number of other men were employed, in order to bring and explain to me a drawing which he had made on a board of a piece of work which he wanted me to execute. Full of the all-engrossing subject, I at once said, “John, we have some strange work going on in this shop to-day,” telling him what had taken place, at the same time hinting at its possible supernatural character.
The old man looked at me with a serio-comic expression of countenance, and said, “I should have thought you had more common-sense than to believe such nonsense for a moment. I gave you credit for knowing better, etc. etc.” He had just finished his little lecture, and was proceeding to point out the details of the drawing on the board lying in front of us, each having a finger upon it about an inch apart, when a piece with a somewhat sharp point came dashing from a distant part of the roof, and struck into the board betwixt our fingers. The hard-headed old Scot stood aghast, and for the moment almost speechless, forbearing to make further allusion to my common-sense.
The foregoing is a fair specimen of what occurred during the first day, and this state of things was kept up with more or less frequency during the following six weeks, and always in broad daylight. Occasionally we would be left in comparative peace for a day or two, during which not more than one or two manifestations (if I may so term them) would take place. We would then have a busy season of it, as though making up for lost time. On one of those latter occasions I remember a workman had come in from the building, and was engaged in working a French window-sill on the bench by my side, and seeing a piece about 6in. square and 1in. thick rise, and after describing about three-fourths of a circle, say 5ft. in diameter, in its course strike the window-sill with considerable force just in front of him. This was the largest piece I ever saw. Generally, an ordinary match-box would represent their bulk, although of every variety of shape. I preserved some of these mysteriously projected missiles for a long time, one of which I remember was the end of a ladder stave 3in. or 4in. long. The last piece I ever saw was of oak, about 1in. thick and from 2in. to 2 1/2in. square. It came in the afternoon from a distant corner of the roof towards me, and in its course described what might be likened to a geometrical stair or corkscrew of about 18in. diameter. I may here remark that in every instance, without exception, the moving pieces had been cut off work in the shop. Never was a piece seen to come in at the doorway.
The fact of pieces, in number more than I can tell, getting from the floor at your feet at the one end of the shop to the farthest point of the roof at the other end in some mysteriously invisible fashion seemed to be one of the strangest features of the whole thing. Never in a solitary instance did any of our workmen, of whom there were sometimes six or eight in the shop, nor any of our watchful visitors who favoured us with their company during the course of those six weeks of disturbance detect the slightest indication of anything moving upward towards the roof.
And yet a piece cut off and falling on the floor would, in spite of the lynx-eyed watchers, speedily make its way to the roof at the other end, and come dashing down from a point where there had been nothing a minute before. As the time wore on we became accustomed to the thing, and the movement of those blocks of wood, which seemed to be instinct with life, and in some few instances almost with intelligence, caused but little remark. It were easy to multiply instances, but those which I have given being fair specimens of the whole may well suffice. In the foregoing plain, unvarnished narrative of facts there may be points upon which you may desire further information, and I have only to say that I shall be pleased at any time to answer any questions or supply any additional information which it may be within my power to give.
To have any additional light thrown upon or further explanation given of what I deem to have been the most remarkable episode in my life would afford unspeakable pleasure to – Dear sir, yours faithfully, John Bristow.
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Withington-road, Whalley Range, Manchester, July 18th, 1891.
Dear Sir, – In reply to your inquiries anent the Swanland mystery, I beg to say the disturbances were not dependent upon the presence of any one person or number of persons. Having a somewhat extensive jobbing or repairing business, workmen were frequently sent out. The three of us who chanced to have the shop to ourselves on the day when the disturbances commenced were away several times during their continuance, and more than once were all away at the same time. Not the slightest cessation was perceptible during our absence, the things went on just the same. Every several man we had was away at one time or another during those six weeks, making no difference, our mysterious disturber still kept “pegging away.”
These facts were justly held to exonerate every workman about the place from all suspicion of complicity in the affair.
I had two masters, William Habbershaw and John Gray, the latter dying within twelve months of the affair; the former, with whom I lived, after carrying on the business some eighteen months after his, Gray’s death, retired, settling down in Hull. I give the following names of eye and ear witnesses who could corroborate what I have stated, but seeing it is now 30 years since the occurrence of the strange phenomena, very probably several of them are scattered; two, I know, are dead, viz., my master, John Gray, and Thomas Conder. Another one, James Hodsman, emigrated. Of the rest, with one exception, I have heard nothing since shortly after the events in question.
John Clark, our foreman, wrote me from Hartlepool, a little over four years ago, where he was living with his son; unfortunately, I cannot lay hands on his letter containing his address. / John Turner, joiner, Swanland. / Thomas Smith, joiner, Welton, near Hull. / John Crowther, independent gentleman, who used to make a point of coming in to watch the course of events. His address: “Swanland.” / John Harper, Swanland. / Watson Harper, Swanland.
I may just say that most exaggerated reports got abroad, notably in Hull, where it was said that planks 5 or 6 feet long were being hurled about.
It would have been easy at the time to get the written testimony of half a score of witnesses. I have pretty copious memoranda, but apart from that the whole thing lives in my memory, and is as vividly present to my mind as though it were an experience of yesterday, and will, I am persuaded, so continue to the end of the mortal chapter. – I am, dear sir, yours faithfully, John Bristow.
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The plan of the building described by Mr Bristow, which follows, was drawn by him from memory.
The next paper is an account of an interview which I had with Mr Bristow, who appeared to me a careful and trustworthy informant.
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Notes on Mr Bristow’s Case. Manchester, July 31st, 1891.
I have just called on Mr Bristow, at his house in Withington-road, and he has kindly supplied me with some further facts relating to the disturbances at Swanland. He has also presented me with his MS. notes dated 1854. These notes seem wholly concordant with his account sent to Professor Sidgwick. The longer account, indeed, is little more than a transcript of the rough notes, with the explanations necessary to make the narrative intelligible to a stranger. Mr Bristow left Swanland in 1852, but revisited it in 1854, and wrote his notes (as he has not the slightest doubt) after that visit. I made notes of his conversation, which I now write out under several heads, and shall send to him for revisal, and print as revised.
1. Position of building. On one side the long joiner’s shed abutted on the macadamised road of the village. There were, however, no houses very near. Mr Bristow lodged in a house about 50 yards off, which was the nearest on the same side. On opposite side of road was a house standing behind a garden. The other sides of the shed were in a field: no house nearer than Swanland House, then building, about 500 yards off. No cover of any kind near the shed.
2. Windows and accesses. The windows (which would not open) were low, so that anyone inside could easily see out of them. No one was ever detected at the windows, and no missile ever came in by windows or door. All the missiles were pieces of wood cut off from work in the shop, sometimes identifiable as bits which had dropped to the ground some ten minutes before.
3. Independence of any special person’s presence. This point was specially noticed at the time, as, for want of better explanation, each new observer was at first inclined to suspect some one of the other workmen.
4. Noiselessness of fall of missiles. On some few occasions noise was heard; but as a rule the missiles fell absolutely noiselessly, although with a force which would have made loud clatter under ordinary conditions.
5. Frequency and hours of the falls. At first there were perhaps 8 or 10 in an hour. Later there were only two or three. The falls would begin at about 9 a.m. and last till 4 or 5. They always occurred by daylight. The first was at about 10 a.m. from N.E. (on a Tuesday, the Hull marketday, when there were only three of us left in the shed); the last from S.W. at about 2 p.m.
6. Direction from which missiles came. There seemed no special preference for any one direction. Sometimes they seemed to come from the floor; sometimes from near the roof. No one ever saw a missile actually starting on its course. It seemed as though one caught sight of them at about 6 inches from their initial point.
7. This leads on to the point that the missiles seemed to be intentionally started when no one was looking, or expecting them. Thus the first that struck me struck me half a minute or so after I had put the matter out of my mind. Sometimes one of us would look fixedly for many minutes at a bit of wood on the floor. It never moved while we looked at it. But, once let our attention be relaxed and that very bit of wood would come flying at us from some distant point. Mr Crowther, who was a man of leisure and moderate independent means, used sometimes to sit in the shed for two or three hours at a time, watching to see a piece of wood start on its course. He never saw one start; though, like the rest of us, he saw many which seemed to have just started. We could never mkae up our minds whether the pieces began their flight invisibly, or only when our attention was diverted.
8. Path of the missiles. Sometimes the path of the missiles would appear to be absolutely straight. But often it was undulatory, rotatory, or sinuous. Sometimes it would make a series of jumps. Thus on one occasion a piece of wood, starting from somewhere near me, made a series of some three or four jumps, like a frog, along the bench, about nine feet in length, at which I was sitting at work; then sprang from the bench, about 3 yards, upon a trestle, only some 4 inches wide; then from the trestle on to a wheel-stool (arrangement for making a wheel), and thence straight at a closet door where we kept nails, etc., where it came to rest.
Other pieces came down through the air in corkscrew fashion. The largest piece that ever fell described about three-fourths of a circle thus: One of us, John Turner, was working at a large French window-sill. He wanted to turn it over, and raised it up, leaning against his body. I was a few yards from him, and I saw a large piece of wood rising behind him and flying round him. It lodged itself in between him and the window-sill.
9. Accuracy of aim of the missiles. I have mentioned the alighting of a missile upon the narrow trestle. Others showed a still more exact aim. Thus when the foreman and I were poring over the drawing together, as I have described, our two fingers were, I should think, hardly an inch apart; yet the missile fell and struck just between our fingers.
Again, I was once holding a chisel in my hand, and a piece of wood came and sent it flying from between my fingers, without touching my fingers. In no case did the missiles hurt anybody. Once one flew into a pot of paint which an apprentice, Thomas Conder, was mixing; but they did no real harm. For the most part they were only about as big as a matchbox – you might grasp as you liked at these missiles; there was no catching them.
10. Impression made on witnesses. Perhaps 30 or 40 persons witnessed the disturbances at different times. Not one of them could suggest any ordinary explanation. All without exception were convinced that there was some unknown cause. Most of them were more or less alarmed; Mr Gray by far the most so, for a special reason.
11. Suggested cause of the disturbances. John Gray had a brother, a farmer, who died bankrupt, and left an only son, John Gray (the same name as his uncle’s). This son became an apprentice to his uncle, working on the bench next to me. About the termination of his apprenticeship consumption laid hold on him, and he died about the age of 22 or 23 years. He was hardly more than a boy, and some few weeks before the disturbances began rumour said that his father’s creditors had not received all the money (said to be £100) which ought to have been paid to them, and that his uncle was responsible for this. My master, Mr Habbershaw, had been married four times, and John Turner was his stepson. I knew John Turner well; and he told me that young John Gray’s last request had been that his uncle would repay the money due to his (young John Gray’s) father’s creditors. This, I understand, the elder John Gray did not at once do.
I can personally vouch for his excessive terror when the disturbances began. One day especially he took me with him driving to a job on the estate near Tranby Croft (not built in those days), which was a couple of miles or so from our workshop, and began to talk to me about the phenomena, as though he wished to get me to put them down to some natural cause. I refused to do so, and he could make no reply nor suggest any natural cause. His manner was that of a man almost petrified with terror. I felt convinced that he had had disturbances of which we knew nothing.
He repaid the money – as was said – and the disturbances at once ceased. Of course I cannot vouch at first hand for the repayment of the money, but on one point I can speak from observation. Before the disturbances began there was no tombstone to young John Gray. When they began the uncle put one up in North Ferriby churchyard, which I suppose is there now. I cannot answer for the exact year.
12. Witnesses now forthcoming. I much regret that i did not at the time ask for signatures. I could easily have got twenty. John Gray and Thomas Conder are dead. James Hodsman emigrated. John Clarke was living 6 years ago, as I have said, but I have lost his address. He lived with his son, also John Clarke, who was a draper at Hartlepool. He might therefore possibly be traced. {Letter returned; he is probably dead. – F.W.H.M.} John Turner, stepson of Mr Habbershaw, Mr Gray’s partner, is, I believe, doing business as a joiner at Swanland, and Thomas Smith at Welton, near Hull. John Crowther, if alive, is likely to be still in his house at Swanland. John Harper and his brother Watson Harper were labourers, but intelligent men. If alive, they are likely to be still at Swanland.
Notes written out same evening. F.W.H. Myers, July 31st, 1891.
Corrected and approved. John Bristow.
It was obviously important to find other surviving witnesses, who might confirm or modify Mr Bristow’s account. Mrs Sidgwick visited Swanland on September 29th, 1891, and her account is subjoined.
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Notes of a visit to Swanland, made within a few hours of our interviews. September 29th, 1891.
Miss Allen and I went to Swanland this morning. Swanland is a village two miles from North Ferriby, the second station from Hull on the Hull and Doncaster line. We first visited the churchyard of North Ferriby, close to the station in order to discover the tombstone of John Gray. We found two tombstones which bear on our case – one, to the memory of Stephen Gray, died August, 1827, and his wife, who died in 1842, and to his son, John Gray, who died, aged 22, on January 5th, 1849. The other, exactly similar, was to the memory of John Gray, died 1851, aged 48, and his wife Anne, who died 1854, aged 45. The first John Gray is doubtless the nephew and the second the uncle, and the occurrences in question must have taken place in 1849.
We then went on to Swanland, and first addressed ourselves to an elderly blacksmith who was looking out of his shop, and said we were in search of John Turner, who, we believed, could tell us about some wonderful occurrences of pieces of wood flying about in the shop, etc. John Turner had been dead for some time, it appears, but our blacksmith remembered hearing about the thing, and thought some of the old people could tell us about it. He called an old cobbler, Edward Harper, who lived a few doors off, who had not personally seen anything, but remembered the affair well, and the sensation it caused, people coming over from Hull to see the place. He knew John Bristow, and was interested in hearing of him, and we gathered that Mr Bristow had been both liked and respected in the place. Harper also remembered how John Crowther had interested himself in the thing, and after being sceptical had become convinced of its mysterious character. But John Crowther is now dead, and Harper could not think of anyone now alive who had actually seen the movements going on except “Tommy Andrews.” Harper’s account of what went on was graphic, and corresponded well with Mr Bristow’s, except that he increased the size of the pieces of wood to the size of a man’s head. The belief that the disturbances arose from wishes of young John Gray’s respecting money being unfulfilled by old John Gray was evidently the current belief in the village at the time.
We then went to see Thomas Andrews – an old man, rheumatic, and retired from work. He impressed us as a clever, sensible sort of man. He has a very expressive sort of face, and I can quite imagine his being the man “the expression of whose elongated countenance” Mr Bristow speaks of. Miss Allen remembers that Harper spoke of Andrews’ hat being knocked in by one of the pieces of wood, but we neglected to ask him about this, nor did I inquire of him about specific phenomena mentioned by Mr Bristow, but rather tried to draw out his own independent account of things. He told us that the pieces of wood certainly did fly about for the space of five or six weeks, that he was working in the shop at th etime and believed he was one of the first to see them, that he believed it to be a trick at first. I asked whether he was sure it was not a trick, and he said he was sure, because they searched, and no one could have played it, and because the pieces of wood could not have taken th ecourse they did had they been thrown. To illustrate this he made us hold his stick and showed how a piece would come along and go round the stick as it were, and “no one could throw it like that.”
Asked as to explanations, said that some gave one and some another – but the only one we got out of him was the one about John Gray junior’s unfulfilled wishes and the tombstone, which he said was afterwards put up. This was his own belief as to the explanation, but he said that John Gray, senior, when asked about it, shuffled the matter. The only specific incident I remember his mentioning was about the Scotch foreman and the piece that came down as he was looking at the plan. Mr Andrews aftterwards himself took the business and occupied the shed for a time – was often in it at night, etc. – but never saw anything mysterious except during those six weeks. I think he corroborated the fact that the phenomena happened independently of any one person’s presence – but am not sure. He was a little deaf, and it was not quite easy to make him understand our questions. We asked when it happened, and he calculated back that it must have been between 40 and 50 years back. He too was keen to hear about John Bristow, whom he remembered well – said he was an apprentice in the shop at the time, Mr Andrews also knew about Mr Crowther’s investigating.
We saw the shed. As you come into Swanland from Ferriby it is a few doors to the left on the left-hand side of the road, and is still used as a carpenter’s shop. It corresponds to Mr Bristow’s general description of it, except that it now has a door on to the village street, a door in two divisions, the upper one of which was opened by a man who looked out as we came up to it. We spoke to him, but he knew nothing of the matter; he was young and a new-comer. We looked in through the open half of the door, and saw that the interior of the shed and the general surroundings corresponded as far as we saw to Mr Bristow’s plan, but we did not go into the yard.
Mr Andrews’ account of the size of the pieces of wood madde them somewhat larger than Mr Bristow’s – about 4 inches square.
Altogether, all we saw and heard went to confirm Mr Bristow’s account, except that the tombstone, which Mr Andrews also said had been put up to John Gray junior after the disturbances, was really put up to his father an dmother as well, and we cannot say whether John Gray senior really erected it to the whole family then, or whether he added the name of the young man then, which led to the rumour.
We are not sure whether John Crowther has left any family in Swanland, but doubt whether, if he did, it would be worth asking them for notes, as, from the way he was spoken of, it hardly seemed to us likely that he had taken any.
Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick. / Eleanor Wardell Allen.
P.S. October 1st. I have just been looking through Mr Bristow’s rough notes, and see that Thomas Andrews was the man who, according to him, had his hat knocked in. Miss Allen did not know this, so that the fact of Edward Harper, according to her recollection, remembering that Andrews was said to have had his hat knocked in must be regarded as confirmation of Mr Bristow’s account. It is also in Mr Bristow’s favour that a witness he did not refer us to – T. Andrews – should confirm him as he did. E.M.S.
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{The rough notes of 1854 begin with the words: “On Tuesday forenoon Tom Smith, Tom Andrews, and myself were working in the shop”; and later on says: “I noticed a piece come from the farthest corner of the roof, and partially knock in the crown of Andrews’ tall hat.” – F.W.H.M.}
These various recollections, independently obtained, and the observation of the still-standing shed and its surroundings, confirm the accuracy of Mr Bristow’s memory in a somewhat unusual way, considering that more than 42 years had elapsed between the events and the complete collection of evidence. We may, I think, be pretty sure that the paper of 1854 contains a substantially accurate account of the events of 1849.
It is, I think, hard to doubt that in that year a long series of inexplicable movements of objects took place; that these movements occurred in full daylight, and in the midst of a number of adult Yorkshiremen at work on their ordinary occupations; and that no observer was able to suggest any explanation except the agency of a deceased comrade. It cannot now be proved in the same first-hand manner that on the execution of this deceased comrade’s dying wish, the manifestations ceased.
The apparent connection with this departed person may possibly be a mere coincidence. But in any case the movements themselves will remain to be explained; and no plausible explanation by ordinary laws has as yet, I think, been suggested.
Further discussion must be left for a subsequent paper. In the meantime it is to be hoped that each fresh instalment of testimony of this perplexing type may prompt to a wider collection of similar records. Considering how very little serious effort has as yet been made in this direction, the amount of evidence which has already come to hand is enough to suggest that a good many sporadic phenomena may be taking place in this world of which science hears little, and might with advantage hear more.
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 1891-2.
In ‘On alleged movements of objects, without contact, occurring not in the presence of a paid medium’ by Frederic W.H. Myers, pt. 2.
… My contention is that things described are by no means the same as things done. Mr Lang’s view apparently is that they are. And so a page or two further on he introduces a highly decorated piece of bric-a-brac – Mr Bristow’s account of the Swanland disturbances. The disturbances took place in 1849, when Mr Bristow was a joiner’s apprentice. In 1854 he made some rough notes of the occurrence; in 1891 he expanded those rough notes into the account printed in our Proceedings. …
Frank Podmore bitching about Andrew Lang’s ‘The Making of Religion’, in Proceedings of the SPR, 1898/9.
And above it says “ but seeing it is now 30 years since the occurrence of the strange phenomena,” which implies c.1861.