The Bermondsey Poltergeist

In 1857, Sarah and Charles Bacon were deeply alarmed by the unusual occurrences in their modest residence on London Street in Bermondsey. Their thirteen-year-old stepdaughter, Caroline, Charles’s daughter, was also unsettled by the events. For five consecutive days, enigmatic sounds echoed within the confines of their home, escalating to items mysteriously flying off shelves and shattering on the ground in Charles’s absence. Sarah, aged fifty-three, harbored concerns that the unseen malicious entity might bring ruin upon their possessions. The specter of uncertainty loomed large, overshadowing the family discord with Caroline and fostering a sense of unity within the household. Word of the haunting swiftly spread throughout the vicinity, attracting curious crowds eager to witness the ghostly phenomena. The influx of spectators, numbering over a thousand, caused disruptions to local residents and businesses, although the nearby pubs likely experienced heightened patronage. As the unruly gatherings persisted, the situation necessitated the presence of twenty to thirty police constables, under the command of Superintendent Branford and Inspector Mackintosh, to maintain order and safeguard the house from potential threats on the evenings of Thursday, November 12, and Friday, November 13.The Bacons’ residence located south of the Thames was a fitting setting for a haunting, situated in the infamous Bermondsey ‘rookery’ known as Jacob’s Island. Although not a literal island, this area was bordered by St Saviour’s Dock, the Thames, the River Neckinger, and Hickman’s Folly at Dockhead. Within this ‘island’ lay dilapidated and congested dwellings surrounded by polluted man-made ditches dating back to the seventeenth century, originally intended to supply water for the local mills, lead factories, and tanneries emanating dreadful odors of urine and excrement.

Describing the scene in 1852, Thomas Beames remarked:

“…the houses are clearly aged, with upper stories slightly jutting over the ground floor, although not as prominently as in many of our historic towns where such extensions create penthouses: there is nothing notably quaint or captivating about them; they were hovels and shall remain so as long as they endure.”

Prior to the 1830s, Jacob’s Island was a little-known locale, until Charles Dickens drew public attention to it. Towards the conclusion of Oliver Twist, the criminal character Bill Sykes seeks refuge in Jacob’s Island following the murder of his lover Nancy, meeting his demise by accidentally hanging himself above Folly Ditch. Here is Dickens’s portrayal of the area from Chapter 50 of the novel:.

“…In Jacob’s Island, the warehouses stand roofless and vacant; the walls crumble, the windows cease to exist, the doors collapse into the streets, and the chimneys, though blackened, remain dormant. A thriving place thirty or forty years prior, before losses and chancery suits took their toll, it now lies desolate. The houses, unclaimed and accessible to the brave, serve as dwellings and graves for those who seek refuge there. Only those with compelling reasons for hidden abode or those truly destitute find solace in Jacob’s Island.”

The Bacons were enduring residents of Bermondsey. Charles Bacon, aged fifty-one during the haunting, toiled as a dock laborer and a carman, akin to a modern van driver. In 1827, he wed his first spouse, Rachel Ball. They bore a minimum of seven children, with the youngest, Caroline, born around 1841. A number succumbed in infancy, a tragic occurrence not uncommon in Jacob’s Island, where poverty and malnourishment prevail.

During the summer of 1849, more than half of London’s twelve-and-a-half thousand cholera victims perished south of the river in Southwark, Lambeth, or Bermondsey. The primary health hazard stemmed from consuming water contaminated by industrial and human refuse. Journalist Henry Mayhew penned an article in The Morning Post, “A Visit to the Cholera District of Bermondsey,” vividly illustrating the sewage-ridden tidal ditches enveloping the residences in Jacob’s Island. Along London Street: “The murky water is coated with a thin scum resembling a cobweb, shimmering with oily streaks. Drifting within are large clumps of decomposing green algae, while near the bridges’ supports lie swollen carcasses of animals, on the brink of bursting from putrefaction gases. When a young girl dips a tin can into this noxious liquid to fetch ‘drinking water’ for her family, she unknowingly carries back a harbinger of death.”

In March 1852, Rachel passed away at the age of forty-eight and was laid to rest in the cemetery of St Mary Magdalen Bermondsey. Within seven months, Charles remarried a widow named Sarah Tuckey. Perhaps driven by loneliness, financial necessity, or a desire for a maternal figure for his two remaining daughters, Charles welcomed Sarah into the household. However, shortly after Sarah’s arrival, disturbances began to manifest.

The actions of the ghost in Bermondsey suggest its classification as a poltergeist, a term meaning ‘noisy ghost’ in German. Far from being passive apparitions, poltergeists assert their presence through moving objects, slamming doors, causing property damage, and generating unexplained sounds. They typically target individuals rather than locations, with adolescents and females often being the primary targets.

London’s history includes accounts of poltergeist activity in places like Cock Lane, Stockwell, Wycliff Road, and Eland Road in Battersea. Various theories and explanations, ranging from supernatural occurrences to natural phenomena like air currents and psychokinesis, attempt to elucidate the enigma of poltergeist behavior. Yet, our focus now shifts towards uncovering the origins of the spirit haunting the streets of London.

In the somber days of November, a desperate Charles sought assistance from the priest at the Roman Catholic church of the Most Holy Trinity located atop Parker’s Row. Although the Bacons were not of the Catholic faith, it seemed that Charles, possibly prompted by others, believed an exorcism might be necessary.

Upon refusal by the priest to involve himself in the matter of the Bermondsey Ghost, the situation was brought to the attention of Mr. Hancock from the District Visiting Society, a charitable organization promoting church attendance, Sunday school participation, and providing clothing and aid to the less fortunate parishioners. Mr. Hancock promptly conducted an inquiry at the residence on London Street, accompanied by the vicar of Christ Church in Parker’s Row, Reverend Robert Marshall Martin. One could picture Hancock and Martin as an ecclesiastical version of Holmes and Watson.

The esteemed vicar, an alumnus of St Edmund Hall in Oxford, had served as the curate of Christ Church since its inception in 1845. Residing in Bermondsey with his family, he held Charles Bacon in high regard as a diligent worker and Sarah Bacon as a woman of good standing. Following thorough discussions with the family, both the vicar and Hancock dismissed the notion of a spectral presence. Reasoning logically, they were convinced that the source of the disturbance lay within close proximity.

Upon Saturday, November 15th, by afternoon, Charles Bacon had acquiesced to presenting his daughter, Caroline, before Mr Combe, the magistrate at the Southwark Police Court, for an alleged instance of purposeful damage to her father’s possessions. The Reverend Martin attested that the thirteen-year-old girl was occasionally present as a student at the local ragged school and bemoaned his inability to educate her adequately, resulting in her lifelong inability to write her own name. Despite his professed belief in redemption, he deemed her incorrigible and wayward.

Simultaneously, Charles lamented to the magistrate about his exasperation with a disobedient daughter who consistently sought the company of unsavory acquaintances outdoors. Caroline, in her defense, defiantly claimed to have assumed the role of a ‘ghost’ to chastise her parents for restraining her from socializing with her peers. Notably astute, she elucidated how she manipulated strands of hair to affix to cups and glasses, causing them to topple. Her stepmother, a witness to these incidents, was truly taken aback.

The magistrate, displeased by the girl’s actions which frightened her parents, damaged their property, and diverted law enforcement resources, showed minimal leniency. Circumstances that could have been viewed as mitigating factors today, such as her tender age, the loss of her mother and siblings, and her father’s prompt remarriage, were scarcely acknowledged. Consequently, Mr Combe sentenced Caroline to a two-week term at the Wandsworth House of Correction in hopes of steering her towards a more virtuous path.

Punishment failed once again to yield the intended consequence, and upon her release from prison, Caroline returned home just as unruly as she had been before. Despite Charles’s struggles to manage his daughter, he sought a solution by enrolling her in a private reformatory. After her escape from this institution, he arranged for her placement in another facility, which soon expelled her for being unchangeable and uncontrollable.

Charles then convinced his daughter Rachel, who had recently married, to take Caroline in for a nominal fee. Even after Caroline stole a watch from the couple, selling it for profit, Rachel and her husband, Frederick Epps, allowed her to return. The final discord occurred when Caroline pawned a set of clothes that Rachel, working as a washwoman or seamstress, had instructed her to return to a customer. Therefore, it is not surprising to find that a certain ‘Caroline Bacon’ is referenced multiple times in the workhouse records.

By July 1863, at the age of nineteen, Caroline found herself in court once more, this time at the workhouse in Rotherhithe. Disturbed by something, she promptly began destroying the clothing she was likely provided with by the workhouse. Despite being reminded that she came from a respectable background and should not be utilizing the workhouse’s resources, Caroline persisted in blaming her cruel stepmother for her predicament. A police investigation revealed the fallacy of her claims, showing that even when provided alternative lodgings by her father, she chose to abscond and live an aimless existence on the streets. Consequently, the magistrate sentenced her to a month’s imprisonment upon hearing these findings.

Caroline’s whereabouts for the following thirteen years remain unknown. However, she reemerges in 1875 when she weds John Thomas Cox in Bethnal Green, with her patient brother-in-law Frederick present as a witness to the marriage. Frederick likely felt a sense of relief knowing that Caroline would not need to return to his household. Most of London’s alleged poltergeists can be attributed to the actions of discontented or unhappy young individuals. Caroline yearned for the liveliness of the streets over spending evenings at home with her despised stepmother. The Stockwell Ghost, the Cock Lane ghost, and the Wycliff Road poltergeist of the twentieth century were all individuals in distressing circumstances – a mistreated servant, a manipulated child, and a fifteen-year-old girl who purportedly created eerie knockings with her hammertoes. Like these ‘ghosts,’ Caroline also vanished without a trace, carrying the disturbances with her.

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SOURCE: “The Bermondsey Poltergeist” source: Karen Ellis-Rees, London Overlooked: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/3bzvsu52