Francis Ward Monck (born 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: Science and technology Aviation *Medium bomber, a class of war plane *Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Communication * Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data * Medium of ...

who was exposed as a fraud.

Biography

Monck was born in

Portsmouth, Hampshire Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most densel ...

. He claimed to have

psychic A psychic is a person who claims to use extrasensory perception (ESP) to identify information hidden from the normal senses, particularly involving telepathy or clairvoyance, or who performs acts that are apparently inexplicable by natural laws ...

experiences as a child. He was a clergyman who began his career as a minister of the Baptist Chapel in

Earls Barton Earls Barton is a village and civil parish in Northamptonshire, notable for its Anglo-Saxon church and shoe-making heritage. The village is in North Northamptonshire and was previously in the Borough of Wellingborough until 2021. At the time of ...

, he was interested in spiritualism and became a medium. On 3 November 1876 in

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district 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 confluence into ...

a sitter H. B. Lodge stopped the

séance A séance or seance (; ) is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word ''séance'' comes from the French word for "session", from the Old French ''seoir'', "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, spea ...

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. Grades Cheesecloth is available in at least seven different grades, from open to extra-fine weave. Grades are distinguished by the nu ...

, 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 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 notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth (or ''lamellae'' ...

that he would play in his trousers. Monck left for

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

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 183918 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 illusions a ...

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, 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 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

External links

*
The Spiritualists The Straits Times, 23 December 1876
{{DEFAULTSORT:Monck, Francis Ward 1842 births Year of death missing British Baptist ministers English fraudsters English spiritual mediums Clergy from Portsmouth

Biography

Colley wager

References

Further reading

External links