The Drummer of Tedworth

When

1661–1663 date from records made at the time

Where

John Mompesson’s house in Tedworth (now Tidworth), Wiltshire, United Kingdom

Verdict

Disputed

After magistrate Mompesson confiscated a vagrant’s drum, his house echoed for two years with nightly drumming, knocking and scratching.

What happened

In the spring of 1661 John Mompesson, a landowner in Tedworth, Wiltshire, had a vagrant drummer named William Drury arrested for collecting money with a forged licence. The drum was confiscated and handed over to Mompesson. Soon his house was plagued by drumming at night, thumping on the walls and scratching, and according to later accounts by objects moving and the children’s beds rising. The noises centred on the children’s room and continued, on and off, until 1663. When Drury was transported overseas for another offence the disturbances stopped – and they resumed when he made his way back to England, which only strengthened suspicions that he had bewitched the house. In 1663 the clergyman Joseph Glanvill visited and claimed to have heard scratching under the girls’ bed himself. His account became one of the most famous ghost stories of 17th-century England – even Samuel Pepys read it.

Witnesses

John Mompesson, his family, servants and many visitors; the clergyman Joseph Glanvill, who visited in 1663 and described the case in “Saducismus Triumphatus” (1681).

Explanations and hypotheses

As early as the 18th and 19th centuries sceptics such as Charles Mackay considered the case a hoax: the noises could have been made by the drummer’s accomplices or by servants, with excited household members and guests filling in the rest. A rumour circulated that Mompesson himself admitted to discovering a trick, which his son later denied. Glanvill, a firm believer in witchcraft, used the story as ammunition against the “Sadducees” who doubted spirits. Historians now see it as a classic early poltergeist account that can no longer be verified.

Disputed A likely explanation exists, but some of the facts are still disputed.

Sources

More: Wikipedia (en)