Scratching Fanny – The Investigation
The hysteria generated by the Cock Lane ghost, the increasingly lurid reports in the press, and Kent’s protestations of innocence stirred the Lord Mayor of London, Samuel Fluyder, into action. He established a commission to investigate the affair, its members including Bishop John Douglas, Dr George Macaulay, and a Captain Wilkinson who had previously attended a Parsons’ séance armed with a pistol with which to shoot the spectre and a stick to aid his escape. Sensibly, the ghost did not appear on that occasion.
Also involved in the investigation was Samuel Johnson who provided a detailed account of the séance they attended on February 1st. Once Parsons’ daughter, Elizabeth, had been put to bed, the commissioners crowded round but failed to hear anything unusual. In frustration they challenged the ghost, whom they assumed was in the room, to make good an earlier promise to knock on Fanny’s coffin in a nearby church vault. The ghost refused to comply leaving Johnson and his confrères to conclude “that the child has some art of making or counterfeiting a particular noise, and that there is no agency of any higher cause”.
Nevertheless, the noises started up again, only stopping when Elizabeth was told to place her hands outside of her bed, leading the investigators to threaten her and Parsons with incarceration in Newgate Prison if no more noises were heard by February 21st. When Elizabeth was spotted by her maids concealing a piece of wood about six inches long by 4 wide under her clothing, the truth came out.
Elizabeth had acted under duress in an audacious attempt by Parson’s to seek revenge on Kent by framing him for Fanny’s murder, the wainscoting of an adjoining room having been removed by a carpenter to allow her to make the noises using a block of wood. On February 25, 1762, a pamphlet entitled The Mystery Revealed; Containing a series of Transactions and Authentic Testimonials respecting the supposed Cock Lane Ghost, which have been concealed from the Public and attributed to Oliver Goldsmith, declared Kent innocent.
Parsons was arrested and stood trial on July 10, 1762, in front of Lord Chief Justice William Murray, charged with conspiring “to take away his [Kent’s] life by charging him with the murder of Frances Lynes by giving her poison whereof she died”. It took the jury just fifteen minutes to conclude that Parsons and the others on trial, including his wife, also called Elizabeth, were guilty and he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and three visits to the stocks. So deranged was Parsons’ appearance at the pillory that instead of pelting him with rotten vegetables or worse, they had a whip round for him.
