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The Witchcraft Act 1735
Britain made it a crime to claim you could do magic. A medium was jailed under it in 1944.
- Status
- Repealed by the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951
- Penalty
- Up to one year in prison
What it said
The Witchcraft Act 1735 did not punish witches. It punished people who claimed that someone was a witch, or that they themselves could conjure spirits or work magic. The earlier witchcraft laws had assumed witches were real. This one took the opposite view: magic was not real, and anyone claiming otherwise was probably running a con. The maximum penalty was a year in prison.
The 1944 case
In 1944 the Act was used against Helen Duncan, a Scottish medium who produced “ectoplasm” at séances. Skeptical investigators had reported that her ectoplasm looked a lot like cheesecloth. She was charged under the 1735 Act, convicted, and sentenced to nine months in prison. Accounts differ on whether she was the last person jailed under the Act or one of the last, so this page says “among the last.”
What happened to it
The Act was repealed by the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951, which replaced it with an offense aimed at mediums who fraudulently claim powers for payment.
Want the full Duncan story, séances and all? Hellish Nell: Last of Britain’s Witches affiliate link by Malcolm Gaskill is a good place to start — it follows her whole career. Prefer a library copy? Try Open Library.