Hammersmith Ghost

The Hammersmith Ghost murder case of 1804 set a legal precedent in the UK regarding self-defence: whether someone could be held liable for their actions even if they were the consequence of a mistaken belief.

Near the end of 1803, a number of people claimed to have seen and even been attacked by a ghost in the Hammersmith area of London, a ghost believed by locals to be the spirit of a suicide victim. On 3 January 1804, a member of one of the armed patrols set up in the wake of the reports shot and killed a plasterer, Thomas Millwood, mistaking the white clothes of Millwood's trade for a ghostly apparition. The culprit, a 29-year-old excise officer named Francis Smith, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, commuted to one year's hard labour.

The issues surrounding the case were not settled for 180 years, until a Court of Appeal decision in 1984.

From November 1803, a number of people in the Hammersmith area claimed to have seen, and some to have been attacked by, a ghost. Local people said the ghost was of a man who had committed suicide the previous year, and had been buried in Hammersmith churchyard. The contemporary belief was that suicide victims should not be buried in consecrated ground, as their souls would not then be at rest. The apparition was described as being very tall and dressed all in white, but was also said to wear a calfskin garment with horns and large glass eyes at other times.

Stories about the ghost soon began to circulate. Two women, one elderly and the other pregnant, were reported to have been seized by the ghost on separate occasions while walking near the churchyard; they were apparently so frightened they both died from shock a few days afterwards. A brewer's servant, Thomas Groom, later testified that, while walking through the churchyard with a companion one night, at close to 9:00 p.m., something rose from behind a tombstone and seized him by the throat. Hearing the scuffle, his companion turned around, at which the ghost "gave me a twist round, and I saw nothing; I gave a bit of a push out with my fist, and felt something soft, like a great coat."

On 29 December, William Girdler, a night-watchman, saw the ghost while near Beaver Lane and gave chase; the apparition threw off its shroud and managed to escape. With London not having an organised police force at the time, and as "many people were very much frightened," according to Girdler, several citizens formed armed patrols in hopes of apprehending the ghost.

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