12 minute read
THE LURE OF THE LORE: Amy Boucher’s ghostly tale of poor Martha
Poor Martha
THE GHOST OF DAWLEY PARISH CHURCH
Advertisement
By now, you probably are realising that Shropshire is beset with ghosts, every quiet corner of this fair county seems to
hum with the spirits of the past. These ghost stories are intrinsic to the landscape of the county; they demonstrate people who want to be remembered. Such cultural phenomena allows us to reach back into the past and remind the world of the person there used to be, the human behind the ghost. After all, ghosts are never just ghosts - it’s not as simple as that. They are historical beings, a legacy of the past and they provide us insight into that which haunts our society, as well as a stark social commentary of the world they inhabited. This sometimes makes for difficult reading. That’s why I think, there seems to be a causal link between tragedy, and the spirits longevity. The story goes ever on as they say and when something terrible happens, it’s never truly forgotten. The following piece of ghostlore is a great example of this, though Martha’s true existence is lost to the annals of time, her story of desperation, betrayal, and suicide matters. She’s another of Shropshire’s unfortunate women, representative of many on the fringes of society. Indeed, her story perfectly demonstrates the pitfalls of Victorian morality, as well as how important it is to show compassion. Let’s head to Dawley now, to explore Martha’s story.
If you walked down Dawley high street today, you probably wouldn’t think much, I suppose it looks quite a bit like any old place, however the parish itself is a very old one, having first been recorded in the Domesday Book. That’s a whole lot of life lived, and some monumental changes witnessed throughout history. Some notable features are that the present-day Holy Trinity Church (the site of our haunting) is built not too far from where the 12th Century church once stood.
There was also an important manor house not too far away and by 1361 this had been fortified and known as Dawley Castle. It was important enough to have been fought over and subsequently demolished at the end of the civil war, due to its strategic placement in the local landscape. This placement would prove important in later centuries, particularly with the advent of the industrial revolution. Lying at the heart of the East Shropshire Coalfield, it saw rich seams of coal, iron, and clay, and played a pivotal part in the growth of industrialism within Shropshire. The area had associations with ironworking since the medieval period, however, it was during the 18th and 19th Century that the agricultural community expanded vastly in what seemed like overnight into numerous distinct industrial settlements focusing on making use of the bounty of natural deposits. Thus, Dawley can be seen as a microcosm of the country at the advent of the industrial revolution; the agrarian meeting industrial and representing the challenges this union faced. This is the world in which a young woman known only as Martha grew up, though different now, these streets and this history was hers, just as she is now part of theirs.
As you shall soon see, her plight is representative of the experiences of many young women. We are given a description of a girl who was pretty, cheerful, intelligent, and honest with a lovely smile. Even this breathes life back into her, and it’s hard not to try and imagine her warm disposition and kindness which unfortunately would be snuffed out by circumstance. The story suggests that Martha had started working for a local Squire when she was relatively young and was a very hardworking and valued member of the household. However, around the age of 19, her world was about to be turned upside down. Martha found out she was pregnant.
The implications of such news are hard to fathom now in a world which is kinder to unmarried women. Martha was terrified and didn’t know what to do, so she turned to a man she trusted… the Squire. It is unclear if he was the father of the child, though entanglements such as these weren’t uncommon, my own grandfather was the product of such, and had to be raised believing his grandparents were his parents to ‘save the family name’. Such relationships, if you can call them that had an intrinsic imbalance of power, with coercion and pressure being the tools of seduction, leaving the women worse off, and in a precarious position. Life unfortunately is unlike the fairy tales, where Cinderella marries the handsome prince, it was a different world for the unmarried mother. Littering the pages of history are examples of naïve young women, who were used, and then cast into a world that didn’t want them.
This unfortunately is Martha’s fate.
She went to speak to the squire and told him her news. I suppose she hoped to gain solace, some kindness or guidance at what to do next. However, this was not to be. The Squire struck her and cast her out from her workplace (which was also her home) refusing to support her or give her charity. She begged him, telling him she could still work, but he wouldn’t listen. Perhaps he didn’t want a reminder of his indiscretions around in the house, we will never know, but Martha was cast out of the life she knew, and the future was uncertain.
Martha couldn’t rely on family for support, they were just as outraged at the condition she found herself in, as her employer was, and disowned her. Attitudes to unmarried pregnant women were appalling during this period and they were often blamed for the situation, even in cases of rape or coercion. a small child. This is obviously a horrific image but it’s a reminder of the sort of world Martha would now have to navigate. And the choices she had to make.
There was little help or guidance for such women, a lack of any real affective methods of contraception and what choices they did have seemed to project them further into the mire of perceived immorality. Unmarried women found themselves cut off from the life they once knew and ostracised from communities. This was a social, moral, and economic issue to the Victorians, and often, it seemed like there was little hope. In the years preceding Martha’s story, life for unmarried women grew even more strained, with a number of harsh laws enacted to condemn women morally, spiritually and punish them socially and materially. Sadly, there was an increase in infanticide due to the ‘bastardy clause’ of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. This had made all illegitimate children the sole responsibility of their mothers until they were 16 years old, which would have made it very difficult to provide for the child economically. The putative father therefore became free of any legal responsibility for his illegitimate offspring. I’ve read of a few cases of possible infanticide in Victorian Shropshire, where bodies were found in remote places such as on the Sundorne estate near Shrewsbury in June 1873, where poachers found the partially eaten remains of
Martha was homeless, pregnant and without the means to really support herself. She would have been well aware of the attitudes of the community, so understandably her mind turned to dark thoughts. The folklore states that she wanted nothing more than to raise her child, but she knew what was against her. Thus, she began to think she should take her own life. By the end of the 19th Century attitudes to suicide were starting to shift. Indeed, people were beginning to understand suicide wasn’t always a result of an illness but was rather a symptom, a response to the challenges of living in this modern world, and I think this is how Martha’s choice should be seen. Martha found herself drawn to her local church craving the sanctuary to contemplate her lot. So, she went to Dawley church and sat in the empty building, mulling over what she planned to do. One cannot imagine the fear of this young woman, the desperation she faced. Like many, she turned to her faith to console her and she began to rationalise that if she had a reason to live God would give her a sign. So, she sat, and she prayed and wept, thinking of all her life had been until the outside world grew as dark as her thoughts.
But she wasn’t alone. The Verger of the church had seen Martha enter and was happy leaving her to her own devices. However, as darkness grew, he needed to lock up the church. Single minded in his task, he approached Martha and asked her to leave, informing her that parishioners were not allowed in the church overnight. He wasn’t a cruel man, just unwavering to the rules. She
explained she had nowhere to go, but he insisted the girl must leave. Martha wasn’t one to argue, the Vergers’ words were enough. Martha believed that God had given her the sign that she’d prayed for. So, as she wandered through the graveyard, she pulled out a razor that she’d stolen from her old employer and in the last rays of the days dying light, Martha slit her own throat.
The Verger was still stood on the church steps, so saw her act and quickly rushed to her aid, calling her, but Martha had made up her mind. She rushed over to the low-lying perimeter wall, jumped over it, and made for the well. She was a bloodstained tumult, unable to scream due to the self-inflicted wounds, she would have made a terrible sound as she jumped straight into the path of a man walking home from work. He shrieked, believing he had witnessed a demon, or some unholy wretch covered in blood, and ran straight back to his workplace. The Verger was an elderly man, so he knew he couldn’t make the wall, he realised the best he could do was go back to the Vicarage to rouse help for Martha.
When the Verger and the Vicar returned Martha was no-where to be seen. They searched the area, then shone a light into the well, where poor Martha was face down in the waters below. One cannot imagine what she felt in her last moments or the distress the Vicar and Verger felt upon finding her body. They reached out to the community to try and identify her, to no avail. It seemed as if no one was willing to say they knew her, which adds a further tragedy to this tale.
Though there is no specific biblical warrant condemning and prohibiting suicide, depictions in the bible of those who died by suicide are negative, and within most Christian denominations suicide is objectively a sin which violates the commandment “Thou shalt not kill”. Theologians such as Thomas Aquinas influenced the ideas surrounding suicide well into the 19th Century. He postulated several ideas that became part of popular religious lexicon.
Finally, it was postulated that the act of suicide upends the natural law, the natural tendency of living things is to preserve one’s own life, not lose it. This all contributed to religious and social attitudes to suicide, and in the eyes of the law it became ‘felo de se’ – literally crime against oneself.
Traditionally, to die by suicide meant to be denied a Christian burial in consecrated ground. Rather their body would be buried somewhere away from God’s presence, often at a crossroad in hope it may confuse the ghost of the deceased.
However, the two men were sympathetic, and did the best they could for Martha, giving her a Christian funeral. They knew that they couldn’t bury her in consecrated ground, but they chose to bury her as close as possible to the churchyard in the meadow behind the church.
As with many tragedies, Martha’s story doesn’t end with her burial. Her blood covered spirit is said to continue to haunt the area, often enacting Martha’s final journey, or wandering round the churchyard, as well as jumping over the wall, heading to the long gone well. Her sobs are heard frequently, and her ghost seems to have been reported periodically since her purported death. It’s not uncommon for those who die by suicide to enter into ghostlore. Perhaps Shropshire’s most famous ghost ‘The White Lady of Longnor’ died by suicide. Her apparition appears clothed in her long white wedding dress, on the road bridge near the village of Longnor. She is believed to have thrown herself off of the bridge after being deserted at the altar. Nevertheless, Martha’s story seems particularly poignant and definitely more grounded in reality than this wistful bride. Martha’s plight is a familiar one, and she represents the cruelty and disconnect of a world bound by rigid morality. Her ghost story feels like a social commentary, an insight into the realities of life for those who came before us and I think that’s why it doesn’t really matter if Martha’s story is just a story. Though I believe this story to be grounded in truth, it’s important to note that there have been many Martha’s throughout Shropshire’s history; women who were illtreated and used, lost to a world merciless to them. I wonder what my great grandmother would have thought of this story after her own experiences, I think maybe she would have understood. Martha’s story has prevailed because it reminds us of the power of kindness and how important it is to help those in need. I think that a simple act of kindness can be a beacon in a person’s darkness, and I wish Martha had been given that in life. I feel deeply for Martha, and I hope that if you ever happen to be near Dawley Parish Church, you will take a moment and spare a thought for her and all of those like her, after all- ghosts are never just ghosts, they are people just like you and I.
Amy Boucher X
