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Francis Ward Monck (1842 – ?) was a British
The psychical researcher Thomas Colley defended Monck. In 1906, Colley offered £1000 to anyone who could reproduce Colley's materialization by fraudulent methods. Oppenheim, Janet. (1985). ''The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914''. Cambridge University Press. p. 70. The magician
''The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism''
Herbert B. Turner & Co. pp. 246–247 reveals the materialized "spirit hand" trick that Monck used in his séances. *Ronald C. Finucane. (1996). ''Ghosts: Appearances of the Dead & Cultural Transformation''. Prometheus Books.
The Spiritualists The Straits Times, 23 December 1876
{{DEFAULTSORT:Monck, Francis Ward 1842 births Year of death missing 19th-century British Baptist ministers English fraudsters English spiritual mediums Clergy from Portsmouth
Francis Ward Monck (1842 – ?) was a British clergy
Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...
man and spiritualist medium
Medium may refer to:
Aircraft
*Medium bomber, a class of warplane
* Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''The Medium'' (1921 film), a German silent film
* ''The Medium'' (1951 film), a film vers ...
who was exposed as a fraud.
Biography
Monck was born inPortsmouth, Hampshire
Portsmouth ( ) is a port city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in England not located primarily on the ...
. He claimed to have psychic
A psychic is a person who claims to use powers rooted in parapsychology, such as extrasensory perception (ESP), to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance; or who performs acts that a ...
experiences as a child. He was a clergyman who began his career as a minister of the Baptist Chapel in Earls Barton
Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. A feminine form of ''earl'' never developed; instead, ''countess'' is used.
The titl ...
, he was interested in spiritualism and became a medium. On 3 November 1876, in Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confl ...
a sitter named H. B. Lodge stopped the séance
A séance or seance (; ) is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word ''séance'' comes from the French language, French word for "session", from the Old French , "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general and mundane: one ma ...
and demanded that Monck be searched. Monck ran from the room, locked himself in another room and escaped out of a window. A pair of stuffed gloves was found in his room, as well as cheesecloth
Cheesecloth is a loose-woven gauze-like carded cotton cloth used primarily in cheesemaking and cooking. The fabric has holes large enough to quickly allow liquids (like whey) to percolate through the fabric, but small enough to retain solids lik ...
, reaching rods and other fraudulent devices in his luggage. Spence, Lewis. (1991). ''Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology''. Gale Research Company. p. 1106 After a trial Monck was convicted for his fraudulent mediumship and was sentenced to three months in prison.
The physicist William F. Barrett
Sir William Fletcher Barrett (10 February 1844 – 26 May 1925) was an English physicist and parapsychologist.
Life
He was born in Jamaica where his father, William Garland Barrett, who was an amateur naturalist, Congregationalist ministe ...
also caught Monck in fraud with "a piece of white muslin on a wire frame with a black thread attached, being used by the medium to simulate a partially materialised spirit." In his séances Monck placed a musical clock on a table, covered it with a cigar- box, and claimed spirits caused it to play. It was exposed as a trick as Monck had hidden a small music box
A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces Musical note, musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder (geometry), cylinder or disc to pluck ...
that he would play in his trousers.
Monck left for Brooklyn
Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
in the United States to ply his trade, where he was well known up until at least 1883.http://ehbritten.blogspot.com/2014/01/some-notes-on-life-of-francis-ward.html, See newspaper clippings on this site
Colley wager
The psychical researcher Thomas Colley defended Monck. In 1906, Colley offered £1000 to anyone who could reproduce Colley's materialization by fraudulent methods. Oppenheim, Janet. (1985). ''The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914''. Cambridge University Press. p. 70. The magician John Nevil Maskelyne
John Nevil Maskelyne (22 December 1839 – 18 May 1917) was an English stage magician and inventor of the pay toilet, along with other Victorian-era devices. He worked with magicians George Alfred Cooke and David Devant, and many of his illus ...
offered to replicate the materialization. He had managed to successfully imitate the materialization but Colley denied that it was an exact replication. Maskelyne also accused Colley of falsely pretending to be an archdeacon
An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denomina ...
, whilst not receiving an official degree. These accusations were denied by Colley.Slotten, Ross A. (2004). ''The Heretic in Darwin's Court: The Life of Alfred Russel Wallace''. Columbia University Press. pp. 471-474. The case went to court in 1907 and Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection; his 1858 pap ...
testified on behalf of Colley and Monck. The trial lasted less than a week. Maskelyne did not get to collect the money. He also had to pay a £75 fine for libel.
References
Further reading
*Hereward Carrington
Hereward Carrington (17 October 1880 – 26 December 1958) was an American investigator of psychic phenomena and author. His subjects included several of the most high-profile cases of apparent psychic ability of his times, and he wrote over 100 ...
. (1907)''The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism''
Herbert B. Turner & Co. pp. 246–247 reveals the materialized "spirit hand" trick that Monck used in his séances. *Ronald C. Finucane. (1996). ''Ghosts: Appearances of the Dead & Cultural Transformation''. Prometheus Books.
External links
*{{DEFAULTSORT:Monck, Francis Ward 1842 births Year of death missing 19th-century British Baptist ministers English fraudsters English spiritual mediums Clergy from Portsmouth