Ghosts are usually associated with dank old castles, cemeteries, lonely moonlit roads, and the like. It charms me that at least one had the good taste to haunt a museum instead.
The site of our little tale is the Yorkshire Museum in York, England. On Sunday, September 20, 1953, it was hosting an evangelical meeting. The museum was rarely open on Sunday evenings, so it was unusual for the caretaker, George Leonard Jones, to be on duty at that time. After the meeting ended, Jones locked the front door, and he and his wife went into the kitchen, which was located in the basement. While there, they heard footsteps above them, so George went to investigate. Some time afterward, he explained to a reporter from the “Yorkshire Evening Press” what happened next:
"I told her it must be Mr. Willmott, Keeper of the Museum, going to his office. I went upstairs to tell him we were ready to leave. I fully expected to see him, but when I was halfway up the stairs I saw an elderly man crossing from Mr. Willmott's office into another room. I thought he was an odd looking chap because he was wearing a frock-coat, drain-pipe trousers and had fluffy side-whiskers. He had very little hair and walked with a slight stoop.
"I decided he must be an eccentric professor. As I neared the top of the stairs, he seemed to change his mind, turn, and walk back into the office. When I got to the door, he seemed to change his mind again and turned quickly to come out.
"I stood on one side to let him pass and said, excuse me, sir, are you looking for Mr. Willmott? He did not answer but just shuffled past me and began to go down the stairs toward the library.
"Being only a few feet from him, I saw his face clearly and could pick him out from a photograph any time. He looked agitated, had a frown on his face, and kept muttering: 'I must find it; I must find it.'
"It was queer, but I did not think about ghosts for one minute. He looked just as real as you or me. But I did not want him roaming around so late at night, and anyway I wanted to lock up and catch my bus.
"As I followed him down the stairs, I noticed that he was wearing what seemed to be elastic-sided boots, and I remembered thinking how old-fashioned the big black buttons looked on the back of his coat.
"Still muttering, he went into the library. It was in darkness and I switched on the lights as I followed him in a few yards behind. He was standing between two tall book racks pulling first one book and then another from one of the shelves. He seemed anxious to find something.
"I thought to myself, this has gone far enough. So, thinking he was deaf, I stretched my right hand out to touch him on the shoulder. But as my hand drew near his coat he vanished, and the book he had been holding dropped to the floor."
The book was “Antiquities and Curiosities of the Church.” It hardly sounds like a book to draw one back from the grave, but you never know with ghosts.
Mr. Jonas, understandably wanting proof that he was not going mad, persuaded Willmott to stand guard with him at the museum for the next few Sunday evenings. However, the ghostly book-fancier did not make another appearance until Sunday, October 18. Soon after Willmott left, George saw the figure again. It came downstairs from the first floor, crossed the hall, and went through the closed door of the library. This time, no books were displaced.
George asked another friend, Walter French, to join him on his Sunday vigils, but their curiosity was unrewarded until the night of November 15. As the men were walking through the library, they heard the sounds of book pages being turned, followed by a sharp thud. Down one of the aisles, “Antiquities and Curiosities of the Church” was lying on the floor, its pages still fluttering.
George noted that the ghost seemed to appear every fourth Sunday at precisely 7:40 pm. Accordingly, on the evening of December 13, he gathered a small group in the Museum library to await events. Among the ghost-hunters was George’s brother James. He did not believe in ghosts, and had been making unkind speculations about his brother’s sanity. He must have felt a bit sheepish when he saw the copy of “Antiquities and Curiosities” being pulled out from the shelf by invisible hands, after which it fell to the ground in an odd manner. “It didn’t seem to fall at the same speed books usually fall,” he explained.
He called the rest of the group over. They all saw the book lying on the floor, its pages turning. The shelf where it had rested was examined. No strings, wires, or any other sign of human trickery was found. One of the witnesses admitted that just before the book was moved, his legs suddenly felt a strange chill, which vanished after the book fell.
“Maybe somebody will believe me now,” poor George sighed.
On January 10--the ghost’s next expected appearance--George was home ill. Willmott stood vigil in his place, but the literary spook failed to make an appearance. On February 7, 1954, Eric J. Dingwall and Trevor H. Hall of the Society for Psychical Research arrived to investigate for themselves. Sadly, the ghost--clearly a shy, bookish type who just wanted to be left alone--again refused to show itself, leaving Dingwall and Hall muttering about tricks of the light and secret string-pulling.
And so the ghost of the York Museum quietly drifted back off into whatever shadowy realm it came from. It was theorized that it was the spirit of Edward Wooler, a Darlington solicitor and antiquary--dead for the past thirty years--who had once owned the copy of “Antiquities and Curiosities.” Whoever our spectral gentleman was, I hope he found whatever he was looking for in the book, and was satisfied.
