Dead Man in the Pulpit

The Door Creaks Open

It is December 1876 and we are in the village of Kingston in southern Devon on a ‘dark and gloomy’ night. The choir are practising for Christmas in St James the Less, the parish church, and as the winds howl around one of the choristers becomes distracted: ‘he sees a door move, and a few seconds of anxious watching confirms his supposition’.

I very much wish I could have been there for what happened next.

By this time the attention of the whole choir has been directed to the slowly opening door, and soon in the dimly lighted space a figure indescribable, draped in white, appears before them, and with solemn march goes slow and stately down the aisle and mounts the pulpit: thence it returns and vanishes into night, whilst they, distilled almost to a jelly with the act of fear, stand dumb and speak not to it.¹

I can’t find good images of the inside of St James the Less. I presume that the ghost walked in the front door and that the ghost remained only a second in the pulpit. Could that have taken less than two minutes from beginning to end?

What happened afterwards? The choir apparently had conniptions

No sooner had the strange visitant disappeared through the doorway, than shrieks and faintings and groans relieved the terrified choir, and a flight… followed… The mysterious occurrence had a marked effect upon those who witnessed it, and a doctor was in attendance upon one of them the following day, but we do not know whether the incident of the previous night had anything to do with ailment.²

Who Was the Ghost?

This mysterious figure was believed by the choir to be the spirit of a local vicar who had recently died: some ‘assert that in the ghost they recognised the features of a deceased popular minister.’³ In the nineteenth-century it was rare, in an Anglican setting, for anyone but the vicar to step up to the pulpit: that was very much his place. But who exactly? This is where the trail runs cold.

Kingston wasn’t a stand-alone living in the 1870s: the curacy of Kingston was annexed to the vicarage of Ermington. In White’s 1878 directory (which also notes repairs after lightning damage ‘about 1876’), the incumbent of Ermington (with Kingston annexed) was Rev. Courtenay J. C. Bulteel, with Rev. Courtenay John Bulteel as curate.⁴ Neither had died ‘recently’. But there was a lot of instability among the curates of Kingston: with complaints about absenteeism and a failure on the part of Ermington to appoint a curate who would fulfill his duties.⁵

I’d suggest the ghost was believed to be one of the better curates (recently departed) coming to stand (however briefly) in the pulpit for a final bow. I can’t find any local press coverage of these obscure curates, so it is difficult to offer a candidate. My guess is that it was the curate who took over in 1874-1876, after a particularly scandalous interlude. But I haven’t yet found a name. If anyone can help… I need receipts.

What was the Ghost?

One thing we can be sure about. The encounter happened. I don’t mean by this that a ghost necessarily waltzed to the pulpit and back out of the door. I mean that the British press had, in the nineteenth century, high standards for probity and truth. If this was an invention of a local penny-a-liner there would have been several letters from ‘Furious of Kingston’, in the next numbers of the Western Morning News. We can be sure then: a group of mixed-age men and boys (the choir) thought they saw something on winter’s night.⁶

So what was going on? The obvious explanation is that a local joker walked into the church with a sheet over their head, strolled up to the pulpit and then, joke done, skedaddled out of the church. Fear and the half light did the rest. The joker would have needed nerve. There are a lot of ghost fakers in nineteenth century Britain: but most play their games around the hedgerows, not infiltrating a church in front of a crowd and climbing up to the pulpit.⁷ Another possibility is that there was a play of the light. Perhaps the door blew open and a previously unnoted glimmer through a church window took on the semblance of something moving down between the pews. Or perhaps… No, no, that way madness lies.

The Why of the Ghost

Leaving such mysteries for the end times, it is worth noting that the Kingston choir were not alone in their experience. Churches, I have argued in the past, are not particularly haunted places before the twentieth century. The church was consecrated ground with the altar protecting the space from evil or ambivalent supernatural residents: at worst there are occasional intrusions, but not occupations. In Britain the haunted church is above all a product of the twentieth century and the sad decline of the notion of consecrated ground; ‘sad’ because it is another step in the long retreat from our surroundings into cosseted and now digital shells.

However, there is one folk story that might be a distant relation of this experience. In Ireland there is the well known legend of the priest who cannot rest because he has not said a promised mass. This story can also be found in Britain in Catholic circles. Here is an account from recusant Cheshire.

A strange visitation occurred in Neston during the lifetime of Teresa Higginson, who died in 1905. She had the charge of the keys of the Catholic church when the priest was away. One morning, during his absence, a strange priest arrived very early, and signed to her without speaking, that he wished to say Mass. She had never seen him before, but he seemed to be familiar with the mass. After the service, he passed into the vestry, and a few minutes afterwards she followed him there. The place was empty. No one had seen him leave the church, nor was he ever seen again.⁸

The local bishop suggested that the visitor was a one-time priest of the parish who was buried in the graveyard. The restless priests are ‘restorer’ ghosts in that they need to put something right: but they are also para-angelic figures in that they are carrying out God’s work. I like them.

It is tempting to put the occasional returning Anglican vicar (and the unusual number of dead organ players) in the same bracket. They are continuing their Godly vocation, not quite in this world or the next. Perhaps the terrifying Kingston apparition was reckoned to be a much respected one-time curate of St James the Less coming to give one last brief sermon. Why else was he reported as going up to the pulpit?

Note that I recently talked on the Boggart & Banshee podcast about churches and the supernatural with my archenemy, Chris Woodyard. Annoyingly this instance might prove one of her points.

Huge thanks to Tim Johnson for finding the Kingston piece.

1. I give our two sources in their entirety here. ‘A weird story comes from a little village not far from Modbury. It is a bleak raw night, the choir of the parish church have assembled for the purpose of practice, and their voices are making sweet melody in the sacred edifice, when a sharp-sighted chorister thinks he sees a door move, and a few seconds of anxious watching confirms his supposition. By this time the attention of the whole choir has been directed to the slowly opening door, and soon in the dimly lighted space a figure indescribable, draped in white, appears before them, and with solemn march goes slow and stately down the aisle and mounts the pulpit: thence it returns and vanishes into night, whilst they, distilled almost to a jelly with the act of fear, stand dumb and speak not to it. Thus far we have been able to borrow from Horatio’s description of another supernatural appearance; but the sequels differ. No sooner had the strange visitant disappeared through the doorway, than shrieks and faintings and groans relieved the terrified choir, and a flight—a veritable sauve qui peut—followed. The night, as has been said, was dark and gloomy, just the one for eccentric spirits to select for visiting former scenes, and to make the spectators all the more positive that the white-robed figure was a ghost. Indeed, the villagers are convinced that the apparition was that of one recently deceased—one whom they all knew and respected. The mysterious occurrence had a marked effect upon those who witnessed it, and a doctor was in attendance upon one of them the following day, but we do not know whether the incident of the previous night had anything to do with ailment. Good ghost stories are becoming scarcer every day, and at such a season as Christmas a new apparition is very opportune. Under these circumstances, residents in the district are to be congratulated upon their rare fortune.’ ‘A Ghost in Church’, Western Daily Press (23 Dec 1876), 2. ‘Our Plymouth Correspondent telegraphs: To-day’s Western Morning News reports a strange incident at the village of Kingston, Devon. While the choir was engaged in practising for the Christmas services, a distant door opened, and through the dimly-lighted church a figure, draped in white, slowly stalked up the aisle and mounted the pulpit. No one challenged the visitor, and the alleged apparition slowly re-traced its steps, vanishing at the same door. The terrified choir fled in dismay. Some assert that in the ghost they recognised the features of a deceased popular minister. Next day one member at least required medical aid.’ ‘A Ghostly Visitor’, The Echo (London) (21 Dec 1876), 4. Read these carefully and a problem emerges. The ‘Plymouth Correspondent’ adds details to the original Western Morning News article: the exact village; the identity of the ghost. I presume in what follows that these are accurate, though perhaps the fact the ghost was a minister is supposition.

2. ‘A Ghostly Visitor’.

3. ‘A Ghostly Visitor’.

4. William White, History, Gazetteer and Directory of the County of Devon Including the City of Exeter, and Comprising a General Survey of the County and Separate Historical, Statistical and Topographical Descriptions of All the Hundreds, Unions, Parishes, Townships, Chapelries, Towns, Ports, Villages & Hamlets; the Diocese of Exeter; the Seats of the Nobility and Gentry; Magistrates and Public Officers; and a Great Variety of Archaeological, Architectural, Agricultural, Biographical, Botanical, Geological, and Other Information. Second Edition (Sheffield: William White 1878–9), 315. I’m not clear whether this is the father and son (nothing like a bit of Victorian nepotism) or the same individual.

5. There is a lot in the contemporary press but this sets out the basics: Courtney Bulteel, ‘Curacy of Kingston’, Western Daily Mercury (17 December 1874), 2. Notice until 1869 Kingston had been quite well served.

6. Indeed, I have seen instances where local correspondents had to publicly apologise in the pages of their own paper for what we would today call ‘misinformation’. The happy go lucky nineteenth-century American attitude where you hoax the world and have a jolly good laugh was absent from priggish Victorian England. For more on this Simon Young, Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends (Jackson: Mississippi University Press, 2022) xxv-xxxviii (see particularly, xxxviii).

7. For an excellent overview of ghosting: Jacob Middleton, Spirits of an Industrial Age: Ghost Impersonation, Spring-heeled Jack, and Victorian Society (N.P.: Create Space, 2014).

8. Christina Hole, Traditions and Customs of Cheshire (Menston: Scolar, 1970), 150-