The Cheltenham Ghost

The Cheltenham Ghost was an apparition said to haunt a house in Cheltenham in western England. The building was the home of the Despard family whose daughter Rosina saw the ghost of a veiled woman on several occasions in the 1880s.[1]

The Society for Psychical Research in London is the oldest institute of its kind in the world. Its members are dedicated to research paranormal phenomena. To this end, the Society has sent one of its founders, Frederic Myers, to investigate the case. He produced perhaps one of the first pseudoscientific reports on a Ghost apparition investigation in history.[2]

Summary

In April 1882, Captain Despard with his invalid wife and six children moved into a house known as Garden Reach in Cheltenham, England. The house had been empty for many years, and there were reports of its being haunted.[3]

It was in June that Rose, the Captain's daughter, saw the ghost for the first time:

"The figure was that of a tall lady, dressed in black of a soft woollen material, judging from the slight sound in moving. The face was hidden in a handkerchief held in the right hand (...)on further occasions, when I was able to observe her more closely, I saw the upper part of the left side of the forehead, and a little of the hair above. Her left hand was nearly hidden by her sleeve and a fold of her dress. As she held it down a portion of a widow's cuff was visible on both wrists, so that the whole impression was that of a lady in widow's weeds".[3]

The ghost was seen on a number of occasions between 1882 and 1886 by several people, some of whom also claimed to hear the woman's footsteps. All 17 people who saw it say it was so lifelike that at first, they mistook it for a living person.[3] The Society for Psychical Research was asked to investigate.[4]

The Society for Psychical Research Investigation

Frederic Myers researched the history of the house and found that Garden Reach was built in 1860 and occupied by a husband and wife. After his wife's death, the husband married again. The couple was a heavy drinker and did not have a good relationship. The second wife left the house shortly before the husband died, in 1876 to die shortly afterward in 1878.[5] By obtaining pictures of both women, Frederic Myers was able to allow Rose to "identify" the ghost as the first wife of the previous owner .[5]

Seventeen people claim to have seen the Ghost and it was assumed that it was no longer seen after 1899. Later, after the house was turned into a boarding school for boys, there were stories of a lady being encountered in the corridors, in the stairs and in the gardens.[3]

Andrew MacKenzie, an occult and crime writer who is a member of the Society for Psychical Research, wrote a book, Hauntings and Apparitions: An Investigation of the Evidence, in which he claims that three people have seen figures around Garden Reach between 1958 and 1961.[5]

References
  1. BUCKMASTER, Nigel (29 May 2017). "Cheltenham Ghost". Retrieved 7 May 2018.
  2. JAMES, William (August 1901). Frederic Myers's Service to Psychology. USA: The Popular Science Monthly. pp. 380–389.
  3. GUSTAVUS, Bridgette (1978). The People's Almanac #2. New York: Bantam Books. pp. 1282–1283. ISBN 0553011375.
  4. MORTON, R.C. (1892). Record of a Haunted House, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. Society for Psychical Research. pp. 311–32.
  5. MaCKENZIE, Andrew (1983). Hauntings and Apparitions: An Investigation of the Evidence. Flamingo. ISBN 9780586084304.
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