To Kill A Ghost

Witnesses described it as an icy cold night, moonless and pitch dark with the air so thick and suspended it was one of those nights where anything could happen to anyone at any moment. Anxiety was circulating as the whispers grew to worry and the worry grew to near panic primed perfectly for a violent climax. A malevolent and rather physically engaging specter had begun to appear around the small neighborhood of Hammersmith, London. The men, good men, good honest hardworking men became frustrated with their inability to protect their wives and daughters. Wives and daughters tittered nervously, apprehensive to move about freely as they were previously accustomed to. It had been a harrowing two months for the residents of Hammersmith, a harrowing two months that would end in murder on that icy, moonless night in January, a murder punctuated with the haunt of a question mark for centuries.

North of the River Thames and West of Kenisgnton and Chealsea, Hammersmith London, stretches across narrowly drawn boundaries and was home to some 45,000 at the turn of the 19th century. There was commerce and community consistent what many would expect of a London neighborhood teaming with growth and economic exchange.

Perhaps the most important feature of Hammersmith during this time was St. Paul’s, an impressive and intimidating gothic structure with sharp turets and an imposing bell tower. St Pauls lended considerable legitimacy and pride to Hammersmith but would find itself the focal point of controversy.

In November of 1803 a figure began to appear around the church yard of St Paul’s. Witnesses described the figure as a ghostly apparition floating about in all white, it was then the whispers began. Some believed the spirit was that of a man that committed suicide and was buried in the churchyard despite contradicting a widely accepted superstition that prohibited the burial of suicide victims in sacred ground. Others felt that it was a poltergeist sent to sow fear and discord among the god fearing residents of Hammersmith. The rumors circulated the area rapidly and residents became on edge.

One evening, on her way home a young woman took her usual route through the church yard of St Paul’s, being well aware of the rumors so she walked quickly and nervously. As she walked the hair on the back of her neck stood on end and she became conscious of a presence that she could not see but could most certainly feel. As she moved hrough the church yard she felt the figure close in on her, she quickened her steps and she recited a comforting prayer in her mind before the world went black. She was found unconscious, hours later, her memory fogged by fear and unable to recall the events that led to her faint.

On another occasion, Thomas Groom a brewer at a local pub was walking home from work. He was skeptical of the rumors but well aware as he took his usual route through the church yard. Thomas was not alone on this occasion but he was trailing his companion from work by several yards. Suddenly, Two hands cut through the impenetrable darkness and clasped around Thomas’s neck, Thomas struggled against his assailant and cried out causing his companion to turn around and call out to him. But just as quickly as it began, the figure retreated, Thomas swiped at the air and felt something soft, something he would describe as a “great coat” but did not see a thing.

There is a sociology to widespread panic and sociologist have long since studied its phenemenona. Like an individual person, a threat, real or perceived elicits some interesting responses in the human psyche. Combined with superstition, religious anxiety and groupthink, a moral panic can erupt quite abruptly and spread like wildfire among a town, a county or even a country. Without warning the public can easily become consumed by rumors, alleged testimony of alleged victims that perpetuate and excaberate the presence of the threat. This phenemona has a way of extinguishing rational thinking and lead people to believe the only way to defeat the invisible other is through violence. And so, not unlike the Salem witch trials before or Satanic Panic much later, the people of Hammersmith were convinced that the only to deal with this threat was to organize and converge on it once and for all. The men of Hammersmith decided to form a hunting party to catch and eliminate the Hammersmith Ghost.

The sightings were becoming more and more prevalent by Christmas of 1803. Left without a formal police force the townspeople formed a watchmen party of armed men which primarily maintained its post in and around the most frequent location of the sightings, St Paul’s church yard.

One time a watchmen spotted the figure and gave it chase only for the figure to inexplicably disappear. Sighting after sighting happened as the fear and panic were erupting. The men of the neighborhood watchgroup were feeling the increasing pressure to eliminate the threat to their community, women refused to come out after dark, rumors began to circulate that older women were so frightened they took to their beds and died of terror. The panic continued to escalate until one night, January 3rd 1804 when a single shot by a young excise officer would cut through the tension like a hot blade.

On the night of January 3rd, Francis Smith had a few drinks at the Black Lyon Pub to steady his nerves. He decided that on that night he would take up a search for the Hammersmith ghost and being that he was described as good natured and jovial perhaps he was not looking forward to the prospect of confratation with a malevelant spirit.

Smith left the pub, feeling the warmth and confidence offered by the fresh alcohol in his veins petted the heavy steel shaft of his weapon for reassurance. As he walked along the dark path he encountered William Girdler, the night watchmen who encountered the spectre in the church yard a few nights before but had eluded his capture. Smith asked Girdler for assistance and the two worked out a system for identifying one another in the darkness. If one man shouted who goes there? The other would respond ‘Friend’. But Smith would have to wait for Girdler to complete his rounds as he called out the hours struck by the town clock.

Smith set out on his own while he waited for Girdler to join him. As he traveled down Black Lion Lane, Smith began to sense a presence nearby. Adrenaline pulsed through his body as he nervously called out “Who goes there?!”

Silence

“Damn you,”. “Who are you? And what are you?”

Silence

Smith called out a final warning, “I WILL SHOOT YOU!”

And with barely a pause for a response

Smith fired his weapon, a large thud heard off in the distance, followed by a woman’s voice calling out the name Thomas

Just feet from his cottage, Thomas Millwood lay dead. A single gunshot wound to the chest. As red spread through his all white uniform, characteristic of his trade as brick layer, it was clear, he perished as a consequence of mistaken identity.

Smith was arrested, just 12 days later Smith was on trial for the murder of Thomas Millwood. Speaking on behalf of his own defence Smith said

“My Lord, I went out with a good intention, and when this unhappy affair took place, I did not know what I did; speaking to the deceased twice, and he not answering, I was so much agitated, I did not know what I did; I solemnly declare my innocence, and that I had no intention to take away the life of the unfortunate deceased, or any other man whatever.”

Smith was facing the death penalty, a common punitive measure carried out swiftly and deliberately in the days before capital punishment carried any moral compunction.

Francis Smith was found guilty of willful murder, a charge we understand today as premeditated murder or murder in the first degree. But that verdict was not the verdict rendered by the jury presiding over the case. When the jury returned from deliberation they had found Smith guilty of manslaughter, a lesser charge the three judges would not accept because they insisted the law would not permit them to. The jury was re-instructed to return to deliberation and either return a verdict of total acquittal or murder. The jury chose murder. Francis Smith was sentenced to death by hanging whereby afterwards his body would be delivered to the custody of a medical college for dissection.

But, Francis Smith would not meet that fateful end. Public sympathy for Smith was immense and compelling enough for the local Lord, Lord Chief Baron to refer his case to the crown whereby he received a pardon for the death sentence on the condition he be imprisoned for 1 year.

Shortly after the trial of Francis Smith, an elderly shoe maker by the name of John Graham admitted to being the Hammersmith Ghost. Graham had been taking to the area dressed in a white sheet.

His purpose? To scare his apprentices as punishment for frightening his young children with ghost stories.

Murder seems simple. In most instances murder is either categorized as pre-meditated, unplanned but intentional or accidental but the result of a reckless action. This is, of course a simplified survey of how many western cultures identify the varying degress of criminal culpability for violent crimes resulting in death and for these varying degrees of crimes there are varying degrees of acceptable defenses. The case of the Hammersmith Ghost tests the boundaries of what constitutes a reasonable defense of murder and also proves the intensely impactful nature of legal and judicial precedent in legal systems based in English Common Law.

The court record, whether a case or defense is successful does not tend to die with the case it relates to. It is referenced, when and where convenient and what we allow in that system persists. Smith’s defense of mistaken identity, mistaking a live human person for a ghost, would remain influential in similarly situated cases and the questions incited as a result remained elusive and legally unclear for almost 200 years. The principles of self defense in early English Common Law were formed but went unclarified, exposing the need for protection of the law, in the form of a defense for someone who believes that their action, even violent action, is necessary and acts in good faith but is mistaken about the situation.

This remained true until the early 1980’s when the legal confoundment of the Hammersmith ghost were resurrected in a case. In 1983 a court of appeals in the UK demystified and formalized the law in a case where a young black man was assaulted and mistaken for the assailant when in fact he was detaining the real assailant during an active robbery. The court states

“In a case of self-defence, where self-defence or the prevention of crime is concerned, if the jury came to the conclusion that the defendant believed, or may have believed, that he was being attacked or that a crime was being committed, and that force was necessary to protect himself or to prevent the crime, then the prosecution have not proved their case. If however the defendant’s alleged belief was mistaken and if the mistake was an unreasonable one, that may be a peaceful reason for coming to the conclusion that the belief was not honestly held and should be rejected. Even if the jury come to the conclusion that the mistake was an unreasonable one, if the defendant may genuinely have been labouring under it, he is entitled to rely upon it.”

At last Hammersmith Ghost and its peculiar but fatal circumstances were given a proper legal burial.

The law is reactive and slow, sometimes cumbering along a dark twisted path that raises more questions than answers. Clarence Darrow once said “Justice is not what happens in a courtroom. Justice is what comes out of a courtroom. For Thomas Millhouse and his family this was not justice however, it did allow for a sorely needed nuance to be included in the delination of what constitutes murder providing meaning and purpose to the tragedy.