A Profile of Romantic-Period Popular Magic: Taxonomies of Evidence

Churms, Stephanie Elizabeth

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-04810-5_2

A Profile of Romantic-Period Popular Magic: Taxonomies of Evidence

Stephanie Elizabeth Churms⁴

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First Online: 17 January 2019

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print ((PERCP))

Abstract

This chapter provides a profile of the living contours and resonances of popular magic during the 1790s in terms of its practitioners, clientele and ambiguous legal status in the wake of the 1735 Witchcraft Act. Material manifestations of the cunning man’s trade are delineated using three ‘case studies’ which investigate in detail some of the textual evidence for magical practices that exist from the Romantic period. These case studies include two chapbook-style pamphlets that act as biographies of the cunning men John Roberts and Richard Morris, the evangelical, didactic productions of Hannah More, two pamphlets produced in the wake of the execution of Mary Bateman, the notorious ‘Yorkshire Witch’ and convicted poisoner, and The Conjuror’s Magazine, an occult miscellany published monthly from 1791 to 1794.

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Notes

1.
Davies, Popular Magic, 21.
2.
See, for instance, the July 1791 report of Berkeley Burland, Chairman of the Somerset Quarter Sessions, who attempted to argue for clemency for Martha Biggs, convicted for ‘pretending to exercise witchcraft‘, on account of her age. National Archives, Kew, HO 47/13/45. See also an indictment for fraud in Skipton, Yorkshire, in July 1798 regarding the protection of cattle from destruction by witchcraft; West Yorkshire Archive Service, Wakefield, QS1/137/5.
3.
Edward Hamer, The History of the Parish of Llangurig (London: T. Richards, 1875), 114. Also see Davies, Popular Magic, 64 for more examples.
4.
Davies, Popular Magic, 74.
5.
Edward Pugh, Cambria Depicta: A Tour Through North Wales (1816), 391–2.
6.
Taunton Courier (18 March 1819).
7.
An example is Mary Bateman, the Yorkshire witch whose crimes are recorded in a number of pamphlets of the period, such as The Extraordinary Life and Character of Mary Bateman the Yorkshire Witch (Leeds: Edward Baines 1809) and Vincent’s The Wonderful Life and Remarkable Trial of Mary Bateman (London: T. Broom and W. Evans 1809).
8.
Richard Suggett, A History of Magic and Witchcraft in Wales (Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2008).
9.
Davies, Popular Magic, 71.
10.
Suggett, A History of Magic and Witchcraft in Wales , 107.
11.
Parkins, John, The Book of Miracles; or, Celestial Museum, being an Entertaining and Instructive Treatise of Love, Law, Trade and Physic with the Bank of Heaven (London: Parkins, 1817), 69.
12.
Suggett, A History of Magic and Witchcraft in Wales , 112.
13.
Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 215.
14.
Ibid.
15.
Henry Harries, Nativities Calculated, MS. 11, 119B, National Library of Wales.
16.
An account of conjurors writing and selling charms for success in cock fighting is given by Hamer, who reports that these charms continued to be deployed until the sport was banned by the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1835. See Hamer, The History of the Parish of Llangurig, 116.
17.
Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 228.
18.
The Life and Mysterious Transactions of Richard Morris , better known by the name of Dick Spot, the Conjuror, particularly in Derbyshire and Shropshire, written by an old acquaintance, who was a critical observer of all his actions for near fifty years (London: Ann Lemoine, 1799), 39.
19.
The Conjuror of Ruabon : Being the Life and Mysterious Transactions of John Roberts, known by the name of Mochyn-y-Nant , or the Pig of the Brook, Lately Deceased (Ellesmere: W. Baugh, 1806), 8.
20.
See Parkins, The Book of Miracles, 17, and The Conjuror of Ruabon.
21.
Patrick Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1989), 101.
22.
Curry, Prophecy and Power, 101.
23.
Ibid., 118.
24.
Ibid., 138.
25.
Ibid.
26.
R. Phillips, The Celestial Science of Astrology Vindicated, from the Calumny of those who are Biggotted [sic] against what they do not Understand (London, 1785), 7.
27.
Partridge, quoted in Phillips, The Celestial Science of Astrology, 7.
28.
See Thomas de Quincey, ‘Article for the Glasgow Athenaeum Album: 1848’, The Works of Thomas De Quincey , ed. Robert Morrison, 16 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2003), 289–304.
29.
Curry, Prophecy and Power, 132.
30.
Ebenezer Sibly, A New and Complete Illustration of the Occult Sciences: Or, The Art of Foretelling Future Events and Contingencies (London, 1795).
31.
Sibly, A New and Complete Illustration of the Occult Sciences, 135.
32.
John Worsdale, The Nativity of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France; Calculated According to the Genuine Rules and Precepts of the Learned Claudius Ptolemy (Stockport, 1805), x.
33.
Curry, Prophecy and Power, 136.
34.
Walford Davies, ‘Pig in a Dingle’, 13–5.
35.
The Life and Mysterious Transactions of Richard Morris , 39; 28.
36.
Alan Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (London: Routledge, 1970), 121.
37.
Davies, Popular Magic, 98.
38.
The Conjuror’s Magazine (January 1792) – this secrecy would not last very long; ‘B’ revealed himself as astrologer William Gilbert in the next issue.
39.
Suggett, A History of Magic and Witchcraft in Wales , 98.
40.
Thomas W. Hancock, ‘Llanrhaiadr-ym-Mochnant. Its Parochial History and Antiquities’ Collections Historical and Archaeological Relating to Montgomeryshire (London: Thomas Richards, 1873), vol. VI, 329.
41.
Hancock, ‘Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnant. Its Parochial History and Antiquities’, 329–30.
42.
Arthur Mee, Magic in Carmarthenshire: The Harries of Cwrt-y-Cadno (Cardiff, 1912).
43.
Russell Davies, Hope and Heartbreak: A Social History of Wales and the Welsh 1776–1871 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2005), 361.
44.
Davies, Popular Magic, 135.
45.
Marcel Mauss, A General Theory of Magic, trans. Robert Brain (London: Routledge, 1972), 50.
46.
Elias Owen, Welsh Folk-Lore: A Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales (Oswestry: Woodall, Minshall and co., 1896), 216.
47.
Qtd in Owen, Welsh Folk-Lore, 216.
48.
Ibid.
49.
Davies, Popular Magic, 43.
50.
Ibid., 69.
51.
Suggett, A History of Magic and Witchcraft in Wales , 85.
52.
Curry, Prophecy and Power, 102–4.
53.
John Parkins, The Universal Fortune-Teller; or, Infallible Guide to the Secret and Hidden Decrees of Fate (London, 1810).
54.
Parkins, The Book of Miracles, 17.
55.
The Conjuror’s Magazine (February 1792).
56.
Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 235.
57.
Nicholas Culpeper/John Parkins, The English Physician; Enlarged with Three Hundred and Sixty-nine Medicines Made of English Herbs… to which is Added the Family Physician… and A Present for the Ladies, ed. John Parkins (London: P & R Crosby, 1814), 379.
58.
See Parkins, The English Physician, 387–9.
59.
Owen Davies dedicates an entire chapter of Popular Magic to written charms – see Davies, Popular Magic, 147–61.
60.
See Davies, Popular Magic, 154 for an example of a written charm featuring the (inaccurate) deployment of technical astrological terminology.
61.
Robert Southey, Letters from England , ed. Jack Simmons (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1984), 295; Davies, Popular Magic, 68.
62.
Life and Mysterious Transactions of Richard Morris , 6–7.
63.
Hamer, The History of the Parish of Llangurig, 119. It is not clear from Hamer’s text exactly when Evans was practicing, but Hamer implies that she was a contemporary of conjuror Edward Savage (1759–1849), suggesting that she may well have been operating during the Romantic period.
64.
Ibid.
65.
Southey, Letters from England , 295; Davies, Popular Magic, 68.
66.
See, for example the re-published editions detailing the prophecies of Robert Nixon and Mother Shipton including The Wonderful History and Suprising Prophecies of Mother Shipton (London, 1795); Mother Shipton’s Legacy (York, 1797); Wonders! Past, Present and to Come! Being the strange prophecies and uncommon predictions of Mother Shipton (London, 1797), The Original Predictions of Robert Nixon, commonly called the Cheshire Prophet, ed. J. Oldmixon (London: John Nicholson, 1800)
67.
William St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 343–4.
68.
Lemoine sold his biography of Richard Morris for an affordable 6 pence, while the Ellesmere pamphlet about Mocyhn-Y-Nant cost only a penny.
69.
The Conjuror of Ruabon , 1.
70.
Ibid., 4.
71.
Ibid., 4–5.
72.
Ibid., 4, (my emphasis).
73.
Ibid., 5.
74.
Ibid., 7.
75.
Ibid., 8.
76.
The Life and Mysterious Transactions of Richard Morris , 23.
77.
Ibid., 9.
78.
Ibid.
79.
The Conjuror’s Magazine (December 1791).
80.
The Gentleman’s Magazine (July 1792), 283.
81.
For biographical information on Henry Lemoine see David Goldthorpe, ‘Lemoine, Henry (1756–1812)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004) https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/16430 [Accessed 27 December 2015] and Roy Bearden-White, How the Wind Sits How the Wind Sits; Or, The History of Henry and Ann Lemoine , Chapbook Writers and Publishers of the Late 18th Century (Michigan: ProQuest, 2008).
82.
The Conjuror’s Magazine , I (August 1791), 10.
83.
The Life and Mysterious Transactions of Richard Morris, 7.
84.
Ibid., 8.
85.
Ibid., 8.
86.
Ibid., 36.
87.
Ibid., 5.
88.
Ibid.
89.
Ibid.
90.
Ibid., 6.
91.
Ibid., 7.
92.
Ibid., 27.
93.
Ibid., 5.
94.
Ibid., 23.
95.
Ibid., 6.
96.
Ibid., 21–2.
97.
Ibid.
98.
Ibid., 20.
99.
Ibid., 37–8.
100.
Giuseppe Pinetti, Physical Amusements and Diverting Experiments (London: 1784).
101.
The Life and Mysterious Transactions of Richard Morris , 6.
102.
Ibid., 29.
103.
St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, 352.
104.
Quoted in G. H. Spinney, ‘Cheap Repository Tracts, Hazard and Marshall Edition’, The Library, vol. xx (1940), 296.
105.
Hannah More, Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, vol. I. (London: T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, 1799), 172–3.
106.
St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period, 352.
107.
Ibid., 354. The title page of ‘Tawney Rachel’ advertises the cost of the pamphlet as ‘one-penny, or six-shillings per hundred’ – illustrating the commercial targets of the tract, and the distribution methods that More deployed.
108.
Hannah More, Tales for the Common People and Other Cheap Repository Tracts (Nottingham: Trent Editions, 2002), 87.
109.
More, Tales for the Common People, 94.
110.
Ibid., 67.
111.
Ibid., 87.
112.
See Davies, Popular Magic, 23.
113.
More, Tales for the Common People, 67.
114.
Ibid.
115.
Ibid.
116.
Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 177.
117.
The Extraordinary Life of Mary Bateman , 19.
118.
More, Tales for the Common People, 87.
119.
Ibid.
120.
Ibid.
121.
Ibid., 167, n. 8.
122.
Ibid., 90.
123.
Ibid., 94
124.
Ibid.
125.
Julia Saunders ‘Putting the Reader Right: Reassessing Hannah More‘s Cheap Repository Tracts’, Romanticism on the Net (1999) http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/005881ar [accessed 22.07.2015].
126.
Susan Pedersen, ‘Hannah More Meets Simple Simon: Tracts, Chapbooks, and Popular Culture in Late 18th-Century England’, Journal of British Studies, 25 (1986), 84–113; Natalie Zemon Davies, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 160.
127.
More, Tales for the Common People, 94.
128.
Ibid., 72.
129.
Extraordinary Life and Character of Mary Bateman , 9.
130.
Ibid.
131.
Ibid., 7.
132.
Ibid., 17.
133.
Ibid., 18.
134.
Ibid., 27.
135.
Ibid., 55.
136.
Ibid., 8.
137.
Ibid., 8.
138.
The Wonderful Life and Trial of Mary Bateman , 11.
139.
Ibid., 11.
140.
The Leeds pamphlet briefly mentions Bateman seeking Southcott’s supporters in York as she believed that they would be easy to deceive for her own means, but this remains a short aside and there is certainly no indication that Bateman had any loyalty or interest in Southcott or her teachings beyond this.
141.
The Wonderful Life and Trial of Mary Bateman , 11.
142.
Joanna Southcott, ‘A True Picture of the world, and a Looking Glass for All Men’, Life and Works: A Collection of Pamphlets, Volume 6 (London: Galabin & Marchant, 1809), 10–12.
143.
It is difficult to identify a specific historical period of reference in Davies’ research on witchcraft, owing, largely, to the paucity of existing textual evidence regarding these mundane matters – particularly among the lower orders and in rural areas. However, the time-frame of Davies’ study (1736–1951) identifies that his research is relevant to the post-1735 Witchcraft Act period and beyond.
144.
Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 210.
145.
Ibid., 207–212.
146.
For examples of this see Davies, Popular Magic, 150–151 and Suggett, A History of Magic and Witchcraft in Wales , 109.
147.
Davies, Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 218.
148.
Curry, Prophecy and Power, 130.
149.
Ibid., 115.
150.
Paul Cheshire, An Introduction to William Gilbert (1763–1825?) (2009), http://www.williamgilbert.com/biography.htm [accessed 12 June 2012] (para. 16 of 20).
151.
The Conjuror’s Magazine , I (August 1791), 10.
152.
Paul Cheshire, William Gilbert : Writings in the Conjuror’s Magazine, or, Magical and Physiognomical Mirror (August 1791–July 1793) (2009), http://www.williamgilbert.com/Conjurors_Magazine.htm [accessed 12 June 2012] (para. 3 of 3).
153.
Cheshire, William Gilbert : Writings in the Conjuror’s Magazine (para. 3 of 3).
154.
Marsha Keith Schuchard, Rediscovering William ‘Hurricane’ Gilbert : A Lost Voice of Revolution and Madness in the Worlds of Blake and the Romantics (2005), http://www.williamgilbert.com/GILBERT_Schuchard.htm> [accessed 29 April 2012] (para. 9 of 29).
155.
Schuchard, Rediscovering Gilbert (para. 9 of 29).
156.
Ibid., (para. 10 of 29).
157.
Ibid., (para. 18 of 29).
158.
McCalman, Radical Underworld.
159.
Gloucester Journal (19 January 1792), quoted in Schuchard, Rediscovering Gilbert (para. 6 of 29).
160.
Schuchard, Rediscovering Gilbert (para. 6 of 29).
161.
D. H. Weinglass, ‘Fuseli, Henry (1741–1825)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/10254 [accessed 6 June 2012].
162.
Schuchard, Rediscovering Gilbert (para. 6 of 29).
163.
Ibid., (para. 7 of 29).
164.
Stephen Lloyd, ‘Cosway, Richard (bap. 1742, d. 1821)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/6383 [accessed 6 June 2012].
165.
W. H. Brock, ‘Barrett, Francis (fl. 1780–1814)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/53856 [accessed 6 June 2012].
166.
Francis Barrett, The Magus, or, Celestial Intelligencer (London, 1801).
167.
Paul Cheshire, Astrological References and Background (2011), http://www.williamgilbert.com/astrobackgnd.htm [accessed 12 June 2012] (para. 13 of 13).
168.
Curry, Prophecy and Power, 135–6.
169.
David Paton-Williams, Katterfelto: Prince of Puff (Leicester: Matador, 2008).
170.
Paton-Williams, Katterfelto, 66.
171.
Paul Cheshire, Writings of, and references to, William Gilbert , or B. in The Conjuror’s Magazine (2011), http://www.williamgilbert.com/ConjMag/ConjMagGilbert.pdf [accessed 21 June 2012].
172.
The Conjuror’s Magazine , I (December 1791), 144.
173.
The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle for the Year 1796, 80 (London: F. Jefferies, 1796), 826.
174.
The Conjuror’s Magazine , I (September 1792), i.
175.
Ibid., (March 1792), 340.
176.
Ibid., II (April 1793), 333.
177.
Ibid., I (November 1791), 130.
178.
Ibid., (July 1792), 464.
179.
Ibid., (September 1792), i.
180.
Ibid., (October 1791), 86.
181.
Ibid., 79.
182.
David Goldthorpe, ‘Lemoine, Henry (1756–1812)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16430 [accessed 6 June 2012].
183.
The Conjuror’s Magazine , I (April 1792), 389.
184.
Ibid., (August 1791), 24.
185.
Ibid., II (July 1793), 517.
186.
Ibid., (February 1793), 228.
187.
Ibid., (March 1793), 272.
188.
Ibid., (April 1793), 314.
189.
Thomas Paine, Political Writings, ed. Bruce Kuklick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 135
190.
The Conjuror’s Magazine , I (May 1792), 400.
191.
Schuchard, Rediscovering Gilbert (para. 14 of 29).
192.
Richard Garnett, ‘Gilbert, William (1763?–c.1825)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/10706 [accessed 12 June 2012].
193.
The Conjuror’s Magazine , II (May 1793), 354.
194.
Schuchard, Rediscovering Gilbert (para. 19 of 29).
195.
The Conjuror’s Magazine , I (April 1792), 387.
196.
Ibid., (July 1792), 467.
197.
The Astrologer’s Magazine, I (December 1793), 171.
198.
The Conjuror’s Magazine , II (September 1792), i.
199.
Ibid., I (August 1791), 190.
200.
Ibid., (January 1792), 190.
201.
The Astrologer’s Magazine, I (November 1793), 138.
202.
Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology: Part First (Boston: Josiah P. Mendum, 1852), 31–2.
203.
The Conjuror’s Magazine , I (January 1792), 197.
204.
The Astrologer’s Magazine, I (November 1793), 136.
205.
Ibid., 137.
206.
The Conjuror’s Magazine , II (April 1793), 314.
207.
The Trial of Daniel Isaac Eaton (London, 1794), 35–6.
208.
Damian Walford Davies, ‘Capital Crimes: John Thelwall, “Gallucide” and Psychobiography’, Romanticism, 18.2 (2012), 56.
209.
John Thelwall, ‘King Chaunticlere; or, The Fate of Tyranny’ (1793), quoted in Walford Davies, ‘Capital Crimes’, 56.

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Churms, S.E. (2019). A Profile of Romantic-Period Popular Magic: Taxonomies of Evidence. In: Romanticism and Popular Magic. Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04810-5_2

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