Archive for September, 2007
By: The Scribe on September, 2007
In April 1812, Mary suddenly left the Matthews family, where she had been nanny to the children. She was away for four days – then came back – then left again after an argument. Apparently, she had often told the Matthews family that she would like to live like a wild person in the woods, but in this case, she simply wanted to go abroad. She was somehow able to persuade a friend to write her parents to say she’d “left England with a traveling family”, however instead she applied to the Magdalen Hospital for Reformed Prostitutes under the false name of Ann Burgess – in fact, Burgess was her own mother’s maiden name.
While researching for his book, Mary told Gutch that she had only applied at Magdalen because she had mistaken the place for a nunnery, though this was obviously a lie, since she had told the Magdalen admissions committee an entirely different story: she claimed to have been seduced by a gentleman who’d stayed at a house in Devon where she had worked, and he had taken her to London, only to abandon her after month. She said that after this, she’d started leading a ‘loose life’ – and so the committee at Magdalen admitted her to work as a housemaid.
Only a few weeks later, for some unknown reason, Mary admitted that she had never been a prostitute and that she had given them a false name simply because she needed a place to stay. Although questioned about her family’s whereabouts, Mary continued to lie, saying that her father was dead and that any more talk of her family would cause her to hang herself. They allowed her to stay, and there are records from Magdalen Hospital that confirm Mary was well-behaved – if not rather eccentric and prone to bouts of depression and restlessness – for the duration of her time there. She left the hospital only a few months later.
According to Mary, she went back home after her time in the hospital, disguising herself as a man to avoid the dangers of traveling as a lone woman. She also claims to have been kidnapped along the way, revealed as a woman, and eventually released after begging for her life, but this part of the story may have been simply a figment of her own imagination. It wasn’t until August 1813 that Mary finally arrived home, where her mother was able to find her a job working as a tanner just a few miles from the village.
After three months, Mary left the job after complaining about having to carry the animal hides – and so, after several other failed jobs, she headed back to London, where she began working for a fishmonger. She claimed that during the spring of 1814, while working here, she had a whirlwind love affair with a man named Baker, marrying him after only two months. They apparently lived together near Hastings, but after he sailed off to Calais and promised to return and take her to France with him, she never heard from him again.
Whether this part of the story was true or not is also up for debate, however there is no doubt that Mary was pregnant when she returned to London in 1816. Somehow, Mary managed to weasel herself into a job working at a pub, where she changed her name to Hannah and gained a bit of a reputation for telling highly bizarre stories. The baby was born later that year, but since Mary had no husband to support herself and the child financially, the two of them were shipped off to St. Mary’s Workhouse.
Mary was now alone and penniless with a newborn baby…
…to be continued…
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Tomorrow: Part 6 of course!
By: The Scribe on September, 2007
After the unmasking of Princess Caraboo, Mrs. Worrall was still immensely curious as to who Mary Baker was, and why she would have perpetrated such a scheme. As such, she commissioned the editor from the Bristol Journal, John Matthew Gutch, to learn as much as he possibly could about the girl – either from Mary herself, or from anyone else who might know anything about her. What the editor learned was very interesting indeed – and in fact, it was published as a book in August 1817 to great success!
Mary’s parents believed that the girl’s troubles began after contracting rheumatic fever when she was fifteen years old, and from that point on, she was never quite “right in the head”. She was born in 1719, and so was 26 years old by the time she had arrived as a ‘disoriented’ woman in Gloucestershire. Her family had been very poor, and 6 brothers and sisters had died when they were still young. At eight years old, Mary had learned to spin, weave, and took work on local farms to help feed the family. When she was a little bit older, she had also worked as a maid in Exeter – but after 8 weeks at the house, she left, complaining that the work was just too hard.
She returned home to Witheridge, but after her taste of the outside world, found living at home again unbearable. Running away after only a week, Mary apparently attempted suicide by hanging herself from a tree with apron strings – but was stopped when a ‘voice’ in her head told her it was a sin. In seeming confirmation, she met a man along the road who took pity on the disheveled young woman and gave her enough money for three night’s lodging in Taunton. After her time in Taunton, she begged her way to Bristol – and then decided to walk to London.
Mary almost made it to London, however when she was about 30 miles outside of the city, she collapsed from exhaustion – and was subsequently given a ride by a waggoner to Hyde Park Corner with several other women. After being dropped off, the two women realized that Mary was quite ill, and took her to St. Giles’ Workhouse Hospital, where she was taken immediately to the fever ward.
She spent several months in the hospital, where she was treated with hot baths and other treatments to help alleviate the fever – one treatment was called ‘cupping’, which involves operation on the back of one’s head without anesthetic: the skin is cut in several places, and hot glasses are applied to these spots in an attempt to draw the blood out and alleviate fever. Finally, a Presbyterian clergyman took a liking to the eccentric young woman, who drew her into his care. The clergyman was able to find Mary a job as a nanny, and she had a relatively fruitful experience there.
Next door to the family whose children she took care of, there was a Jewish family who had a cook in their employ. Mary became good friends with him, and she developed a strong interest in Jewish prayers, the Hebrew alphabet, and their strict dietary practices – all things which would come in handy four years later as ‘Princess Caraboo’. She also learned to read and write, and frequently wrote letters home to her family. Everything seemed to be going quite well for Mary Baker…
…to be continued…
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Tomorrow: Part 12! Just kidding, Part 5.
By: The Scribe on September, 2007
The downside to all the attention – for the so-called Princess Caraboo, anyhow – was that her photo and description was running in all the newspapers… and as it turned out, a woman by the name of Mrs. Neale read a description of the princess in the Bristol Journal – and recognized her immediately. Mrs. Neale ran a lodging house in Bristol, and apparently the “princess” had stayed with her a few months earlier – and had sometimes entertained Mrs. Neal and her daughters by speaking her own made-up language. And to make matters even more convincing… when they last saw her, the young woman had left the house wearing a turban.
Mrs. Neale informed the Worralls of her story, while a second witness also claimed to have met the ‘princess’ several days before she had arrived at the cobbler’s cottage. The man swore that he had eaten steak and had a drink of rum with the woman at a public meeting house! Shocked, Mrs. Worrall confronted Caraboo with the information – and with such secure testimony against her, the girl broke her façade and admitted the truth.
In reality, Princess Caraboo was a cobbler’s daughter from Witheridge in Devon, and was named Mary Baker. Incredulous, Mrs. Worrall was at an impasse for what to do with the girl. If she remained in Bristol, the Worralls would be embarrassed and discredited, and so there was nothing to do but… send the girl to America. On 28 June 1817, Mary and three very religious women whom Mrs. Worrall had asked to care for the young woman set sail for Philadelphia.
Amazingly enough, upon arriving in America, Mary was greeted by throngs of excited people shouting for ‘Princess Caraboo’ – so of course, she willingly gave performances as the princess to all who wished to see it. Her last known letter to Mrs. Worrall was written in November 1817, and after that, she seems to have disappeared for several years. She reappeared in England around 1824, where she attempted to exhibit herself for performances as Princess Caraboo – but to her misfortune, the act was no longer successful.
After traveling to France and Spain, she eventually returned to England and settled in Bristol, giving birth to a daughter in 1829. She managed to make a moderate living for the rest of her years, selling leeches to the Bristol Infirmary Hospital, and eventually died of a heart attack on Christmas Even in 1864: she was 75 years old. Although she lies in an unmarked grave, the location of the burial was in the Hebron Road Burial Ground in Bedminster, Bristol.
Yet the question still remains: how was this young, uneducated girl able to make complete fools of the entire British upper class? Some of these people were highly educated, intelligent individuals, and yet she had managed to fool them all. And perhaps more importantly, why would young Mary Baker ever want to do such a strange thing…?
…to be continued…
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Tomorrow: Part 3
By: The Scribe on September, 2007
After bringing the girl back to her home in Knole Park, Mrs. Worrall decided to allow the girl to stay awhile – mainly, because she was curious about who this strange young woman could possibly be. She was able to learn that the girl’s name was ‘Caraboo’, and that she had somehow come to England from a ship – and because she showed an intense interest in some pieces of furniture containing Chinese images, there was speculation that she may have come from China.
Of course, there was one rather substantial error with that mode of thinking: the girl was obviously European in her features. The odd behavior only continued while staying with the Worralls, as she declined to eat any meat, and would only partake in vegetables and water. Still somewhat suspicious, Mr. Worrall finally decided to take her to Bristol’s Mayor for trial – on the grounds that she had been in possession of false currency.
The Mayor of Bristol certainly tried… but he could get nothing intelligible from the woman except for her name. Following procedure for these kinds of cases – namely, ones where not enough information was available or the sanity of the accused was in question – she was sent to St. Peter’s Hospital for further examination.
Once at the hospital, the woman continued to decline all manner of food, and she absolutely refused to sleep on the beds. It was a dirty, overcrowded place, and after only a week, Mrs. Worrall intervened – she removed the young woman from the hospital and took her to stay at her husband’s offices in Bristol. While staying there in care of the Magistrate’s housekeeper, many foreigners and supposed language experts came to visit, hoping to decipher the language. All attempts failed until, finally, a Portuguese traveler by the name of Manuel Eynesso claimed to understand what she was trying to say.
After conversing with the girl, Eynesso was able to relate her story: apparently she was a princess from an island called Javasu, located in the Indian Ocean, and had been kidnapped from her home by pirates. After a long journey on their ship, she was somehow able to escape by jumping overboard in the Bristol Channel and had swum to shore. Finally convinced of her identity, Mr. Worrall brought the newly revealed foreign princess back to his home in Knole, where Mrs. Worrall set up a room for her to stay.
While she lived with the Worralls, Caraboo entertained and fascinated visitors with her strange, ‘exotic’ behavior, including fencing with men and using a hand-made bow and arrow to hunt. She conducted exotic dances, often swam naked when no one was around, and frequently climbed to the top of trees so that she could pray to the supreme god ‘Allah Tallah’. During this time, she continued to eat and drink only select items, refusing meat of any kind.
As word of the strange princess began to spread, more and more people arrived at the Worrall’s home to see the exotic young woman. Instead of retreating for privacy, Caraboo responded well to the attention – her exotic idiosyncrasies increased, and she habitually related the story of her capture from Javasu and the escape from pirates through her elaborate language and dramatic gestures. At one point, she even agreed to write down several examples of her own language so that it could be sent off to Oxford and analyzed. Although it was returned and marked as ‘humbug’ soon afterward, the princess continued to be treated like literal royalty: her portrait was painted, and she sewed herself a ‘traditional’ and elaborate Javasu costume, using materials provided by Mrs. Worrall.
However, the truth was soon to be revealed…
…to be continued…
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Tomorrow: Part Three!
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