Portsmouth, Hampshire, England; trial at the Old Bailey, London
Incident period: 1931 investigations; Portsmouth sittings and prosecution in 1944
Helen Duncan’s séances promised something more tangible than a message: figures said to be spirits could appear from a cabinet and approach the sitters. A Portsmouth police intervention in 1944 turned those performances into an Old Bailey prosecution. Behind the familiar label of Britain’s last witch lies a more complicated record of earlier investigations, opposed witnesses and disagreement among Spiritualists themselves.
The cabinet and the personalities
Duncan was a Scottish physical medium whose reputation spread during the interwar years. Accounts describe a curtained cabinet, subdued red lighting and white material called ectoplasm or teleplasm. The claimed spirit Albert Stuart directed proceedings, while other forms were identified as people known to the sitters. Her husband Henry assisted her work.
The Society for Psychical Research’s historical entry describes the controlled atmosphere of the sittings: participants were expected to stay in place and not touch the manifestations without permission. This matters to the later controversy. A sitter who accepted those rules and an officer who interrupted the performance were observing under markedly different conditions. The file’s Portsmouth pin marks the locality of the wartime sittings, rather than Duncan’s birthplace or the London courtroom.
The London laboratory before the wartime case
In 1931 Harry Price arranged sittings at his National Laboratory of Psychical Research. A modern account in Curious Archive traces his descriptions of white drapery, photographs, a proposed X-ray examination and samples sent for analysis. Price believed ordinary materials were being used. He described features resembling cloth, paper and a manufactured face, rather than simply declaring that the room felt unconvincing.
The examination became a conflict over both material and control. Price wanted to know where the substances had been concealed and how they reached the cabinet after a search. The proposed X-ray episode ended in a dispute rather than a straightforward, published image identifying a hidden roll. His hostile description of Duncan should be recognised as the investigator’s voice, not repeated as a personal insult by later writers.
A revealing sentence in Price’s own later book
Price returned to the matter in Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter in 1936, in a chapter about testing mediums. He wrote that an intrusive examination had failed to reveal Duncan’s hidden cloth and said that using X-rays had finally solved the question of concealment. In the same passage he treated the stomach as a possible hiding place for objects later brought back up.
The compressed sentence should not be read as if it supplies a radiograph which readers can inspect. It is Price’s later summary of an investigation, accompanied by a reference to his separate Duncan publication. The surrounding chapter makes his priorities clear: he wanted stronger controls before and during sittings. It also contains assumptions about women and examinations which belong to his time and should not be adopted as present-day investigation advice.
Portsmouth and the interruption of the séance
By January 1944, naval officers and police were attending Portsmouth sittings. The SPR account describes Lieutenant Worth and Surgeon Lieutenant Fowler’s visit, followed by an operation in which an officer tried to seize a supposed manifestation. The prosecution treated what happened when the performance was interrupted as evidence of deception.
That was not how loyal sitters understood all their experiences. People who believed they had spoken to recognisable figures remained convinced that the cabinet produced something beyond an ordinary impersonation. The conflict in court involved the interpretation of particular performances and testimony, not an agreed observation that everyone described in the same terms.
The Old Bailey verdict and the Spiritualist response
A May 1944 editorial in Light gives a useful near-contemporary chronology: the guilty verdict was returned on Friday 31 March, and sentences followed on Monday 3 April. Duncan received nine months; Mrs Brown four months; Mr Homer and Mrs Jones were bound over. The editorial also explains that the jury did not return verdicts on the other counts after convicting on the conspiracy charge.
Light challenged the idea that the entire Spiritualist movement stood behind Duncan. It recalled earlier concerns raised by Spiritualist investigators and worried about the reach of the old legislation. B. Abdy Collins protested in correspondence that the editorial had selected adverse evidence and neglected favourable sittings. This exchange preserves a debate within the movement, rather than a simple division between believers and outsiders.
What the Witchcraft Act meant in this case
The title of the statute can be misleading. As Scottish Legal News explains, the prosecution under the Witchcraft Act of 1735 concerned pretended powers and deception. A conviction was not a judicial declaration that Duncan possessed supernatural abilities. The language of witchcraft made an arresting headline, but it did not describe a seventeenth-century prosecution for harmful magic.
The same legal history distinguishes Duncan from Jane Rebecca Yorke, who was convicted later in 1944. Calling Duncan the last person ever convicted under the Act therefore obscures the chronology. The old statute was repealed in 1951. These legal changes are part of the case’s aftermath, separate from determining what occurred inside a particular cabinet.
The appeal in contemporary reporting
TIME’s report of 3 July 1944 said the conviction had been upheld. It contrasted an officer’s account of catching Duncan with defence testimony from journalist Hannen Swaffer about an earlier restraint test. Swaffer interpreted her release from the restraints as the work of Albert. The article shows how sharply the same trial could juxtapose an alleged exposure and a confident spirit explanation.
A later legal discussion by Manolete Partners identifies another appeal issue: whether a proposed demonstration of the medium’s powers should have been put before the jury. The refusal was upheld. This does not tell us how a hypothetical courtroom séance would have unfolded. It establishes that a proposed test and the court’s decision not to hold it formed part of the legal argument.
The naval story and the longer source trail
Accounts of Duncan also connect her with a séance announcement about the loss of HMS Barham before the sinking was publicly confirmed. That wartime story helped shape later ideas about naval secrecy and the prosecution. It should not be silently converted into a documented order to silence her over D-Day: the sources consulted do not establish that chain of command.
The most useful approach to the case is to retain its separate strands. Laboratory tests in 1931, Portsmouth observations in 1944, the jury’s verdict, the appeal and later naval speculation each have their own sources. Duncan’s story is substantial enough without turning every later explanation into part of an original police report.
Timeline
1931 — London investigators examine Duncan’s physical mediumship.
January 1944 — the Portsmouth sittings lead to police action.
31 March 1944 — guilty verdict at the Old Bailey.
3 April 1944 — Duncan is sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment.
May–June 1944 — Light publishes an editorial and correspondence reflecting disagreement within Spiritualism.
July 1944 — TIME reports that the conviction has been upheld.
Later in 1944 — Jane Rebecca Yorke is also convicted under the Act.
1951 — repeal of the Witchcraft Act.
Sources & further reading
SPR Psi Encyclopedia: Helen Duncan — Historical overview of the séance arrangements, investigators and Portsmouth evidence.
Curious Archive: Helen Duncan, 2021 — Summary of the earlier Price tests; not a claim that UKPX obtained the separate 1931 laboratory bulletin.
Harry Price, Confessions of a Ghost-Hunter, 1936, page 155 — Primary retrospective passage directly read in the testing-mediums chapter.
Light, May–June 1944, reprinted in Psypioneer, December 2013 — Contemporary editorial and the Collins correspondence, directly read; distinguishes verdict and sentencing dates.
Scottish Legal News: Helen Duncan, 2019 — Historical explanation of the charge, imprisonment and later conviction of Yorke.
TIME, 3 July 1944: There Was Ectoplasm — Contemporary report on the upheld conviction and opposed witnesses.
Manolete Partners: September 2023 legal bulletin — Retrospective discussion of the rejected courtroom demonstration in R v Duncan.
Portsmouth geographical reference — Broad locality coordinate.
Related case files
Henry Slade in London, 1876: the slates, the daylight sittings and the Bow Street prosecution
The Belfast Goligher Circle: the recorded knocks, the weighing machine and Crawford’s invisible beam
Location note: Broad Portsmouth city reference for the wartime case, not a private séance-room address or the site of the London trial.
UKPX historical case file. Researched and checked 4 November 2026. Explore the UK case map · Links & Sources.