The Seance Swindler of Castlemaine

21st February 2025. Reading Time: 13 minutes General, Ghosts Of The Past. 502 page views. 0 comments.

Mr P was well known in media circles for his claims of ‘extraordinary manifestations’ at his home. While some locals were firm believers in the amazing claims, the media remained sceptical. A local detective was encouraged to attend one of Mr P’s sessions to expose what the Daily Telegraph described as spiritual tiddliwinking

In the late 1800’s through to the early 1900’s, the World became fascinated with spiritualism. The hope that there was life after death and that our loved ones could come back and say hello was seemingly answered in the form of spiritualist mediums. Of course, we also know that this era was full of fraud, deception and exploitation. Many spiritualist mediums were nothing more than clever magicians, using sleight of hand and performing in the dark to deceive their clients and gain their notoriety. Famed magician Harry Houdini spent the last years of his life using his expertise to expose these practices, while still holding on to hope that the real thing was out there. This wasn’t a practice that was exclusive to the US or the UK. The spiritualism movement was a Worldwide phenomenon. It not only reached the major cities of Australia, but even the small country towns as well. We may not have had Houdini, but Detective Black from Melbourne’s police force played his own part in exposing a séance racket in the quaint town of Castlemaine.

Sitting an hour and a half on the outskirts of Melbourne, Castlemaine is described as a bustling town that sits on the land of the Dja Dja Warrung peoples. At one point, Castlemaine was the richest goldfield in the World. The gold rush brought Melbourne and its surrounding areas a lot of wealth, as well as visitors from abroad. Many from the UK and Ireland migrated to Australia to make their permanent home. Along with their suitcases, they also brought with them their beliefs and fascination with spiritualism. Some mediums liked to showcase their apparent skills in a public platform setting, while many opted for private seances in the homes of the mediums themselves.

One home that quickly became notorious for its séance was that of Mr P, a resident of Castlemaine. Mr P was well known in media circles for his claims of ‘extraordinary manifestations’ at his home. While some locals were firm believers in the amazing claims, the media remained sceptical. A local detective was encouraged to attend one of Mr P’s sessions to expose what the Daily Telegraph described as spiritual tiddliwinking (my new favourite phrase).

The following article was published on the 26th of April 1873 in the Weekly Times.

" A Most Impudent and Impotent Attempt to gull us."
The above is a summing up of the proceedings which took place on last Saturday and Sunday evenings, at the house of Mr. P - Castlemaine. The opinion has been expressed by one of the gentlemen who was present, and the public will be able to judge from the following report of what took place as to whether the celebrated seances, of which so much has been heard, have
been properly described by his ultimatum. It will be remembered that several months since an account appeared in the "Mount Alexander Mail" of a series of extraordinary manifestations, which were alleged to have taken place in Mr. P— — 's house. Notwithstanding the confirmation which was given to them by those who were present, and the apparent credence also accorded by the journal in which the accounts appeared, the " manifestations" were treated with the ridicule they merited
by " The Daily Telegraph," and a suggestion was made that a detective would expose the " spiritual" tiddliwinking. An absurd challenge was there upon published, calling upon the editor to stake an amount of money, in support of the opinions which were expressed, and proceed to Castlemame in company with a detective officer, it being confidently asserted that the spirits would be all there and pass wheelbarrow wheels, bedchamber utensils, or other things through the walls of the house, leaving no trace of the supernatural mode by which they were introduced. It being no part of the duties of a journal to lay wagers upon the chances of understanding or exposing the tricks of any species of thimblerigging, the proposal was rejected, and the Castlemaine spirits were left alone, under the firm conviction that if they were allowed sufficient rope they would inevitably hang themselves without any special interference on the part of this journal. This anticipation has been fully verified, and after
what took place on last Saturday and Sunday there is little chance that the " impudent and impotent" imposition is ever likely to be played off again with the same amount of success which formerly attended it.

A week or ten days since the subject was revived in consequence of one or two seances being reported in the Press, and it was arranged that a few gentlemen from Melbourne should proceed to Castlemaine to investigate the matter. The party consisted of the Hon. 'James Service, and Messrs. Charles Bright, H. G. Turner, and T. W. Stanford, together with
Detective Black and a representative of one of our morning contemporaries. An application was made to the gentlemen in Melbourne who arranged the affair that a member of the staff of " The Daily Telegraph" should be admitted to the seance, but no promise would be given that this would be allowed. As the refusal was not definite, however, and it was represented that his admission would depend upon Mr. P — , at Castlemaine, he proceeded there along with the others, and saw the earthly
confederate of the spiritual sleight-of-hand people. He discovered, however, that the spirits did not desire too many mortals to be present. They liked about three or four, six being their maximum, while seven would confound them. Mr. P — had a special objection to allowing a representative from this paper to be present. " He did not want ' The Daily Telegraph' at all.
The paper had ridiculed him and the whole thing, and it would never be convinced. He had sent it letters which it did not publish, though he had shown them to some of his friends, and they did not think they were too strongly written, etc." Mr. P — was reminded of the challenge he had given to the paper, and he replied that he was willing to renew it. " If the ' Telegraph ' would put down £100 he would do the same, and get three Castlemaine men to deposit another £100 each ; and if the
'Telegraph' agreed to this, it would be admitted." The result was that the representative of " The Daily Telegraph" returned te Melbourne, leaving the others under the generalship of Detective Black to fight it out with the spirits,
and we are indebted to one of the gentlemen who was present for the following account of what took place : —

As this matter had been brought so prominently before the public, an application was made to the Police Department requesting the attendance of Detective Black, and leave of absence was given to that officer to enable him to accompany
the party, it being agreed that he should he entrusted with the duty of arranging such matters
as were accessary to thoroughly test the manifestations. A preliminary examination ef Mr. P — 's house and premises was made in the afternoon, and, at the request of Mr. Black, some of the articles were shown which had been previously manipulated by the spirits. The hand-saw, which was operated with last week, was' hanging in the kitchen; and the celebrated iron wheel was also seen " down in the yard." A shovel, a rake, and one or two other garden utensils were also noticed lying about, and Detective Black, having made a mental note of where they all were, further operations were postponed till the evening. On returning, it was found that the wheel had been removed to a position close to the back door — "by one of the children," — and the shovel, rake, etc., had been taken inside the house and placed up against the fireplace. These alterations having been noticed, the business of the seance commenced. The room' was examined by Detective Black, who pronounced it to be perfectly sound in walls and ceiling. The chimney was closed up with newspapers; the door and window ditto, and all sealed, and a weighing - machine having been provided, " all hands were weighed to an ounce, or as near that as possible." It had been understood that Mrs. P — should have been submitted to the investigations of a female searcher,
but this portion of the test was objected to by the lady, and was not insisted on. The table in the room was an oval mahogany one, the legs of which were made to screw in and Mrs. P — said it was necessary that it should be placed so that the grain of the wood would run direct from her to her eldest son, a lad of about sixteen or seventeen years, who was one of the party. This placed the table so that one narrow side of it was next the lady, and brought both the legs at her end within reach of her hands. Double blinds were placed on the window to keep out even a glimpse of starlight, and when the light was put out " the room was so dark that you could not see your finger before you." Though the door was secured, Detective Black seemed to think it was still worth watching, or rather guarding, and he took up his position with his back against it, and, all things being ready, the light was put out. When this was done, Mr. P. — requested the spirits of two departed friends, namely, Messrs. Williamson and
Goodfellow, to come to the rescue. There were the wavering spirits of some of the gentle men present to be confirmed in the
and, more important still, there was the unbelieving soul of Detective Black to be put to oonfusion. Mr. P requested a manifestation at first as a matter of form, then he became more earnest, and implored the spirits to interfere, but the "immortal parts" of Williamson and Goodfellow would not respond. Singing was then proposed, and " there was a terrible row made." Songs with good choruses were started, and after about three quarters of an hour bid. been spent in conjuring up the spirits, a noise was heard as of something falling on the table. With that sound there was another, that of the detective officer striking a light, he having supplied himself with some matches on his own account, bring probably incredulous enough to suppose that it would assist the investigation not to leave the re-illumination of the room to other
people. When the light was struck, one of the legs of the table — the one next Mrs P—'s right hand — was seen to roll off the table, and it fell on Mr. Service's knees. This was declared to be a manifestation, but Detective Black tried the other leg, and found that it was so loosely screwed in that the slightest power would unscrew it, and he proposed they should try again after he had exercised his arms a little in the way of " tightening up all the legs. This was done, and the lights were put out again. Mr.
P then repeated his incantations. The singing was resumed, and ail other methods tried to secure a repetition of the manifestation ; but it was no use. Detective Slack's muscles were too much for the spirits , he having "screwed the legs in
so tight that he could not unscrew them again himself." The party sat till midnight, when Mr. P— gave it up as a bad job,
expressing the opinion that " there was some counteracting influence in the room," with which the spirits would not or could not contend. Taking it as a hint that he was the obnoxious " influence," Detective Black offered to go out of the room and give the Bpixits a chance in his absence, but to this the other gentlemen objected, and the seance broke up after Mr. P — had made a final appeal to his obdurate disembodied friends. " Only give us one manifestation, only one," he reiterated ; but the legs of the table were too fast fixed, and wheelbarrow wheels, flat irons, and tea kettles shunned the weighing machine. On Sunday evening there was another seance held, and before it commenced Mr. Black was asked if he would waive some of the minute investigations he had made the previous day as to where the wheel, shovels, etc., were placed. He consented to this, but insisted upon the services of the weighing-machine being retained. All things having been arranged as on the previous
evening, the lights were extinguished, and Mr. P — 's solicitations renewed. For a long time there were no signs of their being answered. The singing was resorted to, and what with the table knocking, and the voices shouting, the none was considerable. Presently Mrs. P— exclaimed "What's that?" and in a moment Detective Black was at his match-box again. His dim suspicious light was quick enough to catch, a glimpse of the form of an arm withdrawing from that portion of the table on which there was a tumbler containing some water, but this cannot be asserted positively. The other lights were then lit, and the manifestation examined. Mr. Black asked if the tumbler belonged to the house, and was answered in the affirmative by Mrs. P — She was then asked where she thought it had come from, when a younger boy, who was present on Sunday evening, exclaimed, "Oh, Ma, that's the tumbler of water you were working with in the kitchen." This appeared to confuse the lady considerably, and the only explanation she could give was " Well, if it is ; what of that ?" Nothing much of course. She might have been preparing it all
ready for her spiritual friends, though, oh the other hand, as Detective Black sceptically remarked, "she might have been rehearsing the trick." However, the officer fell back upon the weighing machine, and when Mrs.P was weighted she was a little more than half a pound lighter than when she sat down. The glass and water were then put in the balance, and it weighed loz.
less than lib. The lady was then put on the scale again, and with the tumbler of water in her hand she weighed exactly what'she had done before. The conclusion forced on the circle was obvious and most unpleasant. Mr. Black then proposed to search the two boys, and in the pocket of one of them he found a wooden pipe, which greatly surprised his mother, as she " had no idea
he smoked." The detective officer questioned the lad closely as to this, and after a good deal of hesitation the boy said he did smoke " sometimes." There was no tobacco found, however. Mr. P held the tumbler to be a manifestation, but " unsatisfactory one," and tried again, but though he informed the spirits that " anything would be welcome," nothing came. It was then suggested that the family should be left in the room by themselves, and while this was being discussed the baby of the
house commenced te cry. Mrs. P — proposed going out to bring it in before the family test commenced, but Mr. Black's detective soul was hardened against the little innocent's cries, and Mrs. P — 's maternal feelings. He volunteered his services, however, as nurse, and offered to either take care of the infant or bring it in to its mother, and the latter compromise was agreed to. The family were then left alone in their defeat, but the spirits were dead to their impending exposure, and the Sunday night's seance broke up to the utter discomfiture of the people who had so foolishly rushed into a conflict with a
detective officer and a few intelligent men.

It was the unanimous opinion of the gentlemen who were present that the preposterous " manifestations" were completely exposed, though it is but right to say that there was a strong impression that Mr. P has been as much deceived himself as any other of the credulous people who have been duped in his house. The opinion expressed is that -he is himself " a thoroughly honest-meaning and straightforward man ; " but for all this that the proceedings on Saturday and Sunday were " a most impudent and impotent attempt to gull us."

So what do you think? Spirutal Tiddliwinking or something more?

* This article has been transcribed so may contain small errors due to parts of the paper being difficult to read. It is also worth noting this was written in the late 1800's and the language is very different to today.

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