In January 1804, the residents of Hammersmith had to take care when leaving home after dark. If reports were to be believed, a ghost had taken to wandering the streets at night.
Although the phantom mostly took the form of a tall man, surrounded by an eerie white glow, several terrified locals claimed to have seen him complete with horns and large glassy eyes. Not content with a night time stroll, the ghoul was said to guard his patch, chasing away anyone who dared to come near. One man took great pleasure in telling anyone who would listen that a cold, pale hand had appeared out of the darkness and grabbed him by the throat, as he took a shortcut through a graveyard.
As Hammersmith had no formal police force, a few local men decided to take matters into their own hands. On 3 January 1804, a tax officer turned vigilante called Francis Smith went looking for the ghost, equipped with a shotgun. Just after 11pm, walking along Black Lion Lane, he saw a flicker of white out of the corner of his eye and turned to see a tall figure appearing out of the darkness. With a shaky voice Smith called out, "Damn you! Who are you and what are you? Damn you, I'll shoot." When the spirit remained silent, Smith fired. With a loud moan, the ghoul collapsed to the ground. Hardly daring to breathe, Smith hurried over to inspect the damage. But this was no ghost. Ghosts don't moan when you shoot them. Lying on the ground was Thomas Milwood, a local bricklayer dressed in white overalls. He was rushed to the nearby Black Lion pub, but it was too late. Milwood was dead.
At his trial, the judge directed the jury that Smith’s belief in the ghost should not muddy their verdict. If they believed he had pulled the trigger, they must find him guilty of murder. After an hour of deliberations, the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter, which the judge refused to accept. Since Smith had neither acted in self defence or accidentally shot Milwood, he could only be declared guilty or acquitted, there could be no middle ground. Smith was found guilty and sentenced to death.
The public, who had been following the story avidly, were horrified. How was it justice for a man to be executed for an honest mistake? As his execution drew near, protesters gathered in Westminster, pleading for a reprieve and at the eleventh hour, Smith was saved, his death sentence commuted to a year's hard labour.
While the trial was in full swing, John Graham, an elderly shoemaker confessed that he believed he might have been the ghost all along. His children had complained that Graham’s apprentice had frightened them with ghost stories, so he had donned a white sheet and followed the young man around to teach him a lesson. The story of this prank had been twisted and distorted, until an innocent man had lost his life as a result of the town's communal paranoia.
In a further twist, Thomas Milwood’s ghost has reportedly been spotted by locals, wandering around outside the Black Lion pub. The man killed for looking too much like a ghost, has now become one.
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