Hissing “Ghost” at Dudley.
Chairs hurled across room.
Beds shaken.
‘Investigator’ bolts from house.
From a Gazette Correspondent.
Dudley, Thursday.
A Kates Hill family named Hancocks, residing at 16a, Hill-street, in the poorer part of the town, is having a terrifying experience through the supposed visitation of an unfriendly spirit. Commencing on Sunday, the visits have continued throughout the week, with the result that the family has had little sleep. The ghost has so far confined its attention to a small room at the back of the house, which has neither window nor ventilation, and which is occupied by Mrs Hancock’s two grown-up sons.
On Sunday a series of knocks was heard, followed by a hissing sound resembling a well-known German shell. This lasted for some minutes. The bed on which the two young men slept was violently shaken, the pictures on the wall swayed backwards and forwards for some minutes, and two chairs were hurled across the room.
The following evening a friend of the family volunteered to make investigations, and about midnight there was a repetition of the weird happenings. The friend, taking up his hat and coat, bolted, telling Mrs Hancocks that he would not sleep in the room for £5.
Various suggestions are offered in explanation of the ghostly visitation. One that finds most favour relates to a former tenant, who is said to have borrowed a smock from Smith, the well-known Dudley hangman, and failed to return it. Those who credit this story, now believe that Smith’s spirit is indulging in a display of annoyance.
Another suggestion is that the house was formerly let to a woman who murdered her husband, and it is his spirit which is responsible for the present happenings.
The local curate has been informed of the occurrences, and has promised to sleep in the house when the opportunity occurs.
Birmingham Daily Gazette, 23rd May 1924.
Dudley “Ghost” Ceases From Troubling.
Kates Hill Ghost. Noisy Spirit’s Two Nights’ Rest.
Who is he? Grim belief of the Dudley gossips.
From a Gazette Special Correspondent.
Dudley’s ‘hissing ghost’ is having a rest. Nothing has been heard or seen of it for two nights, and this afternoon, when I lay on the bed in the small bedroom at 16a, Hill-street, Kates Hill, in which there has been such strange happenings this week, there was nothing beyond a natural nervousness to suggest that it was a “haunted chamber.” But that there is something wrong is quite evident from the state of nervousness in which Mrs Hancocks and her son confessedly are. “I haven’t slept for nearly a week,” Mrs Hancocks said to-day.
This morning I had a chat with the Rev. H. J. Freiensener, curate-in-charge of St. John’s Church, who is interesting himself in the case. He told me that he was not inclined to “pooh-pooh” the suggestion of ghostly visitation until this whole thing was cleared up. “The two young men who slept in the bedroom,” Mr Freiensener related, “came to me as white as sheets to tell me that their bed had been moving, and that chairs had been moving from one side of the house to the other. I told them to come for me if anything more happened, and they called me on Wednesday afternoon. I went and waited there for half an hour or so, but nothing happened.”
Apart from Tuesday afternoon the eerie happenings have been confined to the night-time. Eerie they really were: for while one can say that the moving of pictures may have been caused by some matter-of-fact medium like a sudden draught, or connect the tapping and knockings with old pit workings, the chairs are a stumbling block. There are two chairs in the room. They are of the ordinary bedroom type with cane bottoms; and the son of the house told me today that not only were these chairs dragged across the floor, by some unseen power or hand, but that one of them actually crossed the floor and turned itself upside down!
The son and a friend have been sleeping – or rather trying to sleep – in the room this week. Their experiences, as the Gazette recounted yesterday, have been nerve-racking. in the dead of night have come knocks at the wall, hissing sounds, and a tapping noise, as though someone were hitting the bed-rail with his hand. The mattress on which they lay has been shaken, the pictures moved backwards and forwards, and then there is the inexplicable business of the chairs.
Mrs Hancocks and family are naturally not only puzzled but worried; but they managed to smile when they accounted to me the story of the young man friend, who came to stop the night with a view to making investigations. Soon after midnight he had had enough and left. His fervent declaration was that even £10 would not tempt him to sleep in the room.
I examined the bedroom this afternoon, and could find nothing to account for any happening out of the ordinary. Even the rattling of the pictures, which might easily be explained by the draught from an open window, it was difficult to ascribe definitely to this cause, owing to the situation of the window. The bed itself is a substantial structure, and there is no apparent reason why it should be periodically afflicted with shaking fits.
So Kates Hill has its unsolved mystery. Some local gossips will have it that the house is haunted by the ghost of Smith, the well-known Dudley hangman, who once, so the gossip runs, lent a smock to a former tenant of the house and did not get it back.
Birmingham Daily Gazette, 24th May 1924.
Ghost Silent Since Minister’s Visit.
Man’s Story of Nocturnal Dudley Mystery.
Dudley’s ghost, which caused strange happenings and much perturbation in a house in the Kates Hill district of the town last week, has given no further manifestation. Mr E. Vanes, 20, Hill-street, Dudley, who shared the nerve-wracking experiences, gave an interesting account to a Gazette representative yesterday.
“My friend who sleeps in the house asked me to go and stay with him so that I should have proof that this thing was no mere sham. I accordingly went along and went to bed in the room in which the happenings occurred. Shortly after twelve o’clock I was just dropping off to sleep when my friend nudged me. He said, ‘Can you hear anything, Ted?’ I said I could hear something, for there was a tapping noise which went on for a second or two. Then there was something like the releasing of a catch, and a chair which stood at the side of the bed went up against the wall on the other side of the room. The gas light was full on at the time. As we were expecting something worse to happen we decided to quit the room and half-an-hour after we left it this ‘thing’ started again.
“It appeared as though someone was carting a load of bricks into the bedroom, and the noise went on, at intervals, until half-past two. We were in the kitchen underneath and we could hear the noise above. The statement attributed to me that I would not sleep in the room for £10 is correct. One must express admiration for my friend who went back into the room and slept there for a couple of hours or so.
“Everything has been quiet since the visit of the Rev. H J Freiensener. Nothing more has happened up to the present time, and my friend and the son of the occupier have slept there every night since without any repetition of the occurrences.”
Birmingham Daily Gazette, 27th May 1924.