Ghostly visitor in Leeds house.
Heard – and Seen.
Strange tale of a tall man in black.
Manifestations by a ghost in Leeds occurred last night, not, apparently, for the first time. The alleged ghost has taken up its quarters in an old house in Fieldhead Terrace, off Camp Road. Sometimes noises are heard – the opening and closing of doors, feet running up and down stairs, and weird thuds, and on other occasions the figure of a tall man dressed in black has been seen, according to statements made by people living in the house.
Last night the thuds were heard again, and a sound as of feet shuffling, and somebody running upstairs. Even more striking was an incident, yesterday afternoon. The house is occupied by Mrs Annie Halliday, and she has several lodgers. These include the O’Donoghue family, whose little girl, aged seven, went down from the first floor to the ground floor yesterday afternoon to get some sweets from a shop kept by Mrs Halliday. She went up again and must have reached the first floor landing, when Mrs Halliday heard her give a terrible scream.
Mrs Halliday rushed upstairs, and Mrs O’Donoghue, the child’s mother, came out of her room to the landing. All they could elicit from the terrified child was that she had seen a tall man. She had thought at first that it was her father. The little girl told a “Yorkshire Evening Post” reporter today that the man “came at her like this.” She held her handsup to her face, fingers outspread as though they were claws. Then, apparently, the apparition disappeared. Certainly, neither Mrs Halliday nor the mother saw anything.
“It was a dreadful scream that the child uttered,” said Mrs Halliday. “I never want to hear anybody scream like that again. For that matter, I don’t want to live in this house a minute longer than I can help. I am looking for somewhere else to go.”
“We are all in a state of nerves in this house. Mr Emsley, who lives on the attic floor, is the least worried of the lot of us, but even he slept downstairs last night. I have been told that curious things have been heard and seen in this house before I came into it,” added Mrs Halliday, “Things seem to have got worse since the priest came up, and blessed the house.”
This reference is to the visit of the rev. Father Mawson, curate at St Anne’s Cathedral, who came up at the request of the O’Donoghue family. He listened to what they had to say, and on Monday, sprinkled the walls with holy water. In an interview with our reporter today, Father Mawson said he had done this without committing himself to any belief in what had been narrated, and in order to set the minds of the people at rest. He had also tried to ascertain if there were any police records referring to any tragedy in connection with the house, but nothing had come to light.
A thorough search of the house has been made to see if there can be any simple explanation of what has been heard. Walls have been tested, floor boards have been pulled up, chimneys have been searched, but nothing has been revealed.
Mr William Emsley, who is a scenic artist, has not seen the apparition, but has heard the sounds on several occasions. He has refused to let himself be frightened, and has been sleeping on the attic storey by himselfuntil last night. He still clings to the view, however, that some simple explanation will be discovered.
Mrs Halliday has heard the noises on many nights .They seem to start with a muffled thud on the attic floor, and then there is a sort of shuffling sound on the stairs and landing. For a long time there were only these sounds. Then, one night, when she was going to bed, she saw what appeared to be a big man standing with his hand on the banister. She thought at first it was one of the lodgers, and then seeing it wasnot, she tried to seize the figure. But there was nothing to grab. The man had disappeared.
Thomas O’Donoghue, father of the little girl who was frightened yesterday, says he has seen the tall man – if it is a man – standing on the landing. He seemed to be wearing a long black cloak.
The sounds were heard about three o’clock this morning, but nothing was seen.
Yorkshire Evening Post, 9th November 1932.
What ghosts really are.
It occurs to me to take up my quarters in Fieldhead Terrace, off Camp Road, Leeds, for a while. They have a ghost there. Thuds, shuffling feet and the sound of somebody going upstairs have marked the visits of this ghost which is said by those who have seen it to resemble a tall man in a long black cloak.
I have my own theory about ghosts – (we all have). I believe them to be simply journalists going home to bed. The hour is appropriate; the appearance, on the whole is similar – pale, wan figures stumbling through the night. It is only a theory, and here, in Fieldhead Terrace, is the chance to test it. Maybe, I am wrong, and the ghost is a true ghost, but if so I shall give it the fright of its life when I get there. “I saw a journalist last night,” it will tell its friends on the following day, “and I don’t mind saying it gave me the creeps. Three o’clock in the morning, mind you – thuds, shuffling feed and the sound of somebody going upstairs. Oh yes it was a journalist all right.”
Then the ghost and its friends, like the unfortunate inhabitants of Fieldhead Terrace, will seriously consider living elsewhere. And that is the way to lay them. NORTHERNER.
Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 10th November 1932.
Waiting in the dark.
Last week I thought of taking up quarters in the haunted house in Fieldhead Terrace, Leeds. Since then I have had three nights there, staying on till about 4 a.m. But I haven’t seen the ghost. I suggested – if you remember – that were a ghost to see a journalist, it would get quite a turn. That is precisely what seems to have happened. So long as I am in the house it keeps away. “You should have been here at 8 o’clock,” say those who live in th ehouse. “It was running up and down the stairs for twenty minutes. Four of us saw it.”
Or, when I have turned up on the following evening, they say, “You should have stayed on till five this morning. You hadn’t been gone long before it was banging away in the attic like one o’clock.”
You know those people whose strawberries were so wonderful a month ago, and it’s a pity you can’t come again in September when the apples are ripe? Well, Fieldhead Terrace seems rather like that. And yet I have given the ghost every chance. Three times have I sat in teh haunted room in pitch darkness, waiting for something to happen. For upwards of an hour I – and I must admit, three or four others – waited there. We had no luck whatever. I still believe in ghosts, but I am not altogether sure that I believe in the objective reality of Fieldhead Terrace’s.
Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 14th November 1932.
The Bogey Man.
Disturbing news continues to come in from Fieldhead Terrace. Things are still going bump in the night. The place, they say, is stiff with spectres and bunged up with bogies. [a silly anecdote about his friend encountering a not-a-ghost follows].
Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 16th November 1932.
Ghost Stories.
A breathless messenger urged me the other night to hasten to a house in Leeds to see a ghost. The tenants firmly believe that “he,” as they call him, is determined to make their lives miserable. “He,” I was assured, had been banging on a top floor and bumping down the stairs.
When I got there the inhabitants of the house told me I was too late. “He” had gone. All was as quiet as the grave. But if I would care to stay until 3 a.m. “he ” was likley to return.
I declined. I have as much belief in that ghost as in my dog’s vegetarianism. Mind you, I make no charge of fraud. I believe those poor, foolish people have heard some noises in the night perhaps from water-pipes that air-pockets have got into, and imagined the rest. As a serious journalist I dislike seeing the superstitious nonsense of the credulous flattered as a psychic mystery. Most of the tales of haunted houses do not deserve to be printed. FRANK NORTH.
Leeds Mercury, 19th November 1932.
After leaving Leeds “Ghost House” Tragedy in Family.
Little Girl Burned to Death.
The tragedy of a little girl, whose family left a house in Leeds because it was said to be haunted, and who, in the new house, was burned to death, was described to the Leeds Coroner today. The child was Elizabeth O’Donoghue, aged four. Until recently she had lived with her father and mother at what has become known as the “ghost house” in Fieldhouse Terrace, Camp Road, in Leeds. Because of strange sounds in the house the family removed to 40, Meanwood Street, where the child received extensive burns on Wednesday. She died later from shock.
About a fortnight ago the child’s seven-years-old sister, after going out for sweets, was returning to the Fieldhouse Terrace home and had reached the landing on the first floor when the landlady of the house, Mrs Halliday, heard the child scream. The childsaid she had seen a tall man who frightened her. Before and since then strange noises are said to have been heard in the house.
Mrs E O’Donoghue, giving evidence today said she left Elizabeth alone in teh living roomwhile she went downstairs for a jug of water. On her return a minute or two later, she found the child’s clothing on fire. Witness screamed and a fellow-lodger, named Kelly, came on the scene, and wrapped a coat round the child and took her to hospital.
Witness said there was a small fire burning in the grate. There was no fireguard. She had one, but it was at her sister-in-law’s home. The father, Thomas O’Donoghue, said he was out looking for work when the tragedy occurred. He had just moved in to his present house, and his sister had promised him a fireguard.
The Coroner: You hadn’t a fireguard at your last place, had you? Witness: No sir. I never had a fire there. I could not afford one.
Witness said Father Mawson, who went to his house in Fieldhead Terrace during the “ghost scare,” would say the witness had not a fire burning.
The Coroner, in returning a verdict of “Accidental death,” said the tragedy would be a warning not only to the parents but to other people. “People should not leave young children alone in a house when there is no fireguard,” he added.
Yorkshire Evening Post, 25th November 1932.
Ghost Stays Away.
The “Black Ghost” of Leeds, after scaring 14 people from the haunted house in the Camp Road district, has stopped his nocturnal banging, thudding and shuffling. Mrs Halliday, the tenant, and the subtenants are now living in other parts of Leeds. They left last Friday, and today the house is locked, bolted, empty and silent.
For the first time for weeks people living near the haunt of the 6ft black-clad figure have had peaceful sleep. Mrs McCann,who lives next door to the deserted house, stayed up listening with her husband until early on Sunday morning, but there was not a murmur.
Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, 29th November 1932.
(Fieldhead Terrace is now new housing, redeveloped after slum clearance).
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000748/19320618/054/0003
Probably Mr ODonoghue getting in trouble with the policebecause of demonstrations due to unemployment , this is in June of the same year. Glover Street was off Camp Road also.