Victoria Helen McCrae Duncan (née MacFarlane, 25 November 1897 – 6 December 1956) was a Scottish medium best known as the last person to be imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act 1735 (9 Geo.

[1][2][3][4] Victoria Helen MacFarlane was born in Callander, Perthshire on 25 November 1897, the daughter of Archibald McFarlane, a slater,[5] and Isabella Rattray.

At school, she alarmed her fellow pupils with her dire prophecies and hysterical behaviour, to the distress of her mother (a member of the Presbyterian church).

[5] After leaving school, she worked at Dundee Royal Infirmary, and in 1916, she married Henry Duncan, a cabinet maker and wounded war veteran, who was supportive of her supposed paranormal talents.

In 1926, she developed from clairvoyant to physical medium by offering séances in which she claimed to be able to permit the spirits of recently deceased persons to materialise, by emitting ectoplasm from her mouth.

[6] His photographs reveal that the spirits were fraudulently produced: Duncan's equipment included a doll made from a painted papier-mâché mask draped in an old sheet.

[8] The committee concluded in a report that the "material was swallowed by Mrs Duncan at some time previous to the sitting and subsequently regurgitated by her for the purpose of exhibition.

[12] She reacted violently at attempts to X-ray her, running from the laboratory and making a scene in the street, where her husband had to restrain her, destroying the test's controlled nature.

It proved to be paper, soaked in white of egg, and folded into a flattened tube... Could anything be more infantile than a group of grown-up men wasting time, money, and energy on the antics of a fat female crook.In his report, Price published photographs of Duncan in his laboratory that revealed fake ectoplasm made from cheesecloth, rubber gloves and cut-out heads from magazine covers which she pretended to her audiences were spirits.

[19] The spiritualist journal Light endorsed the court decision that Duncan was fraudulent and supported Price's investigation that revealed her ectoplasm was cheesecloth.

[4] Malcolm Gaskill, who examined holdings from the Society for Psychical Research at the Cambridge University Library, found a sample of Duncan's ectoplasm.

[23] During World War II, in November 1941, Duncan held a séance in Portsmouth at which she claimed the spirit materialization of a sailor told her HMS Barham had been sunk.

[9] Because the sinking of HMS Barham was revealed, in strict confidence, only to the relatives of casualties, and not announced to the public until late January 1942, the Navy started to take an interest in her activities.

According to Donald: The loss of HMS Barham, torpedoed off the coast of Egypt on 25 November 1941, was indeed kept quiet for a while, but letters of condolence were sent out to families of the 861 dead, asking them to keep the secret until the official announcement.

The authorities regarded the case as more serious, and eventually discovered section 4 of the Witchcraft Act 1735, covering fraudulent "spiritual" activity, which was triable before a jury.

Charged alongside her for conspiracy to contravene this Act were Ernest and Elizabeth Homer, who operated the Psychic centre in Portsmouth, and Frances Brown, who was Duncan's agent and went with her to set up séances.

There were seven counts, two of conspiracy to contravene the Witchcraft Act, two of obtaining money by false pretences, and three of the common law offence of public mischief.

The prosecution may be explained by the mood of suspicion prevailing at the time: the authorities were afraid that she could continue to reveal classified information, whatever her source was.

The trial was complicated by the fact that a police raid on the séance in Portsmouth, leading to the arrest of Helen Duncan, yielded no physical evidence of the fraudulent use of cheesecloth, and was therefore based entirely on witness testimony, the majority of which denied any wrongdoing.

[31] After the verdict, Winston Churchill wrote a memo to Home Secretary Herbert Morrison, complaining about the misuse of court resources on the "obsolete tomfoolery" of the charge.

[5] It is believed by spiritualists that she died as a result of the sudden impact of ectoplasm snapping back into her body when the police that raided her séance turned on the light.

"[9] Duncan's medical records indicated that she had a long history of poor health, and as early as 1944 was described as an obese woman who could move only slowly as she suffered from heart trouble.

[38]Psychical researcher Simeon Edmunds also noted that spiritualists had a history of ignoring the evidence of fraud in the Duncan case.

[4] In 2009, a heavy metal band, Seventh Son, recorded and released a song, "The Last Witch in England", depicting Duncan's life and her claims about the sinking of HMS Barham.