Helen Duncan: The Last Witch of Britain

The Witchcraft Act of 1735 was a landmark act for Britain. Unlike the earlier Witchcraft Acts which legalized witch-hunting and the execution of witches, the 1735 act was a complete reversal of attitudes. It ruled that witches didn’t exist and it was a crime for a person to accuse another of possessing magical powers or practicing witchcraft. Furthermore, anybody who pretended to exercise witchcraft, sorcery, or conjuration, by claiming to call up spirits, foretell the future, or cast spells, was to be punished as a con artist and subject to fines and imprisonment. The criminalization of witchcraft brought to an end the gruesome practice of burning innocent victims on the stake, that had claimed the lives of tens of thousands of women since medieval times. Helen Duncan The Witchcraft Act 1735 remained in forced for more than two hundred years, during which it was frequently invoked, particularly during the early 19th century by the political elite to root out “ignorance, superstition, criminality and insurrection” among the general populace. Before its eventual repeal by the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951, it was invoked one last time in 1944 to prosecute a forty-seven year old Scottish woman named Helen Duncan. Her conviction and sentencing earned her the title of “the last witch of Britain.” Helen Duncan (born Helen MacFarlane) was born in Callander, Scotland, in 1897. Even as a child, Helen was quite the imposter. She claimed clairvoyance and drove her fellow pupils at school to terror by predicting doom and destruction for all sorts of people, much to the distress of her mother, who was a devout member of the Presbyterian church. At the age of 18, she married Henry Duncan, a wounded war veteran, and together the pair went on to have six children. Struggling to provide for her large family, Helen, encouraged by her husband, began holding seances and recalling spirits.