Enigma of Borley Rectory

by Harry Ludlum

  1. The Rectory was in a very poor structural state, difficult to heat properly with no gas or electricity. The sanitary arrangements were, for a house of such size, appalling, with broken drains adding to the problems.

  2. Mabel Smith was quite ill whilst at Borley, due to a combination of the state of the place and the probability that she was scared of being in the Rectory, as some locals remember her being.

  3. Whether the Smiths believed the Rectory to be haunted or not, it was a fact that no maid would remain in the place, Mary Pearson being the only one who seemed to have stayed for any time at all.

  4. Following the publication of V. C. Wall's article in the Daily Mirror in June 1929, the Smiths were harassed by sightseers, Smith having to summon the police on once occasion to remove uninvited visitors from his garden.

  5. It is apparent, more particularly from Guy Smith's testimony than from his wife's, that the couple were subjected to poltergeist disturbances and some visual phenomena, the latter chiefly reported by Mrs Smith such as the figure leaning over the gate.

  It is when one adds up these individual problems and allies them to Guy Smith's death in 1940 and the way in which that affected his widow, that one begins to understand what was probably behind most of Mrs Smith's denials and erratic memory about Borley in her later years. The tone of her letters to Harry Price about the time of Guy's death tells us a great deal about her own feelings.

  She was quite plainly very attached to her husband, and his death was a shattering blow to her. This may well have compounded a generally distasteful memory of Borley, and subconsciously Mrs Smith might have tried to block out the episode by sheltering behind a smokescreen. But assuming that to be so, the results could be odd, as evidence shows. Her lapse of memory upon the subject of Borley was not total but selective.

  For example, though she could remember Charles Sutton's visit to Borley Rectory - the more remarkable for the fact that the Smiths were not at the Rectory at that time - she had no recollection of either Dom Richard Whitehouse's or Sidney Glanville's visits at Sheringham and Sevington, Kent, after the Smiths had left the Sudbury area in 1930.

  On those occasions, the couple's comments clearly seemed to indicate that they were quite prepared to accept that the place was haunted. In addition, Guy Smith's comments in a letter to Lord Charles Hope in November 1929 are interesting:

  'You and the others know the place is haunted, and I am sure you will agree it was no place for my wife to reside in, seeing that no maid would stay there.'

  From this, it can be seen that Guy Smith believed the Rectory to be haunted during his tenancy, and whilst his wife's views made a complete U-turn in later years his views showed no evidence of changing from then until his death.

  Then again, there was the 'wine into ink' episode during Price's visit to the Foysters. Mrs Smith's version of this was that it had occurred during her husband's time at Borley, but she may well have mistaken an event from the Foyster period, very possibly because Price made reference to it in a letter to Guy Smith, who would very probably have shown the letter to his wife.

  Another example of Mrs Smith's contrariness concerns Price's first book, The Most Haunted House in England. When it was published and Mrs Smith received a copy, she was most enthusiastic about it and indeed congratulated Price on his work, wishing her husband were still alive to read it, yet after the war she stated that she had burned the book without reading it.

  This echoed further contrariness in that during the heyday of Price's investigation of the Borley Rectory occurrences the Smiths thought very highly of Harry Price; indeed, the tone of correspondence between Guy Smith and Harry Price suggests that they were on the most amicable terms.

  After the war, however, Mabel Smith was wont to blame Price for much of the Borley episode, unfortunately giving his enemies some very misleading ammunition for their attacks on his integrity.

  Guy Smith died in August 1940 so unfortunately a balanced latter-day view of the Borley story from the Smiths' standpoint, died with him. Harry Price's recording of the Smith period was of course mainly, though not solely, concerned with events rather than people and indeed most of his accounts have revealed very little about the Smiths themselves.

  It could be stated that apart from the details in Underwood and Tabori's The Ghosts of Borley the information in R. J. Hasting's report gives just about the only extensive portrayal of the Smiths.

  After leaving their lodgings in Long Melford in April 1930, Guy and Mabel Smith moved to Sheringham in Norfolk, where they were visited by Dom Richard Whitehouse, following one of his visits to the Foysters, during the height of the disturbances.

  By the time Sidney Glanville called on them in 1937, they had moved again, to Ashford in Kent, where Guy Smith was Rector of Sevington for a while, serving a community more concerned with railway engines than ghosts. They were still there in 1939 when Borley Rectory caught fire, and are said to have claimed that on the night of the blaze there some live coals fell out on to their own hearth and nearly caused a fire there as well.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Reverend Lionel Foyster and Marianne

  The story of Guy Smith's successor at the Rectory and perhaps more particularly of his rather strange young wife is in some ways a sad one. It is hardly to be wondered at that Mrs Marianne Foyster, widow of the Rev. Lionel Foyster, ended her days in North America, fearful of any further attention to herself in relation to the story of Borley Rectory.

  Lionel Algernon Foyster, a cousin to the Bull family, was born in Hastings on January 7, 1878, the son of George Alfred Foyster, then the Rector of the local church of All Saints. Lionel was educated at Bilton Grange and at Haileybury, and was admitted to Pembroke College Cambridge in October 1897. He gained a BA in 1900 and his MA seven years later.

  Like so many sons of churchmen in those days, Lionel followed his father into the priesthood just as other lads might follow their fathers to sea or down the mines. He was ordained as a deacon at Wakefield in 1903, and as a priest in 1904. It was in 1903 that he took up his first post as a cleric, when he became a curate at Heptonstall in Yorkshire, which position he held until 1905.

  For the following five years he was a curate at Oughtrington in Cheshire. At the end of that period, he travelled to Canada and from 1910 until the end of the First World War Foyster was Rector of Hardwick in New Brunswick, prior to taking up general missionary work in the province until 1927, the year in which his relative Harry Bull died in Borley Rectory. In that year, Lionel Foyster became Rector of Sackville, Nova Scotia, and remained so for two years.

  About the end of 1929 or early in 1930, he was persuaded to return home by members of the Bull family, and take up the living of Borley, where the huge, cold and lifeless Rectory had lain empty since the departure of the Smiths.

  It was in October 1930 that Lionel and his wife Marianne actually arrived at Borley with their possessions and accompanied by a little adopted daughter, Adelaide Tower, of whom more later. Lionel Foyster was a rather slightly built, cultured and good-natured man, and like Harry Bull he became well liked in the district. Many years later, however, Marianne claimed that he wasn't popular. In fact, it is more likely that it was Marianne that the Borley folk didn't take to, for reasons that will be stated a little later.

  One of the sad aspects of his time at Borley, especially when one considers that he was only 52, was that for much of the time he was stricken with illness, worst of all being rheumatic arthritis, the curse of a country with a wet climate, and indeed it was ill health as much as anything that forced him to quit the living in 1935.

  At one time, he was crippled to the extent that he needed a wheelchair, but sometimes used only a walking stick, which aid seems to have incurred the displeasure of something in the Rectory, for on one occasion it was hurled across the room as he sat typing.

  Lionel Foyster was absolutely committed to his young wife, in spite of her alleged wayward background, and she in turn by her own admission was also dev
oted to him. It comes as no surprise, therefore, to learn that Foyster would brook no criticism of his wife; so when Harry Price and members of his visiting party tried to explain that some of the phenomena seemed to originate with Marianne, the Rector was furious.

  Comments by various people who knew and met Lionel Foyster all seem to indicate that he was utterly straight and honest, and most important, a man unlikely to be fooled or misled by fraudulent imitation of phenomena, either by his wife or anyone else.

  The record of happenings at Borley that he kept for about a year and a half was the result of conscientious documenting of events that he viewed as genuine. The writer has already expressed the opinion that Foyster would not have compiled such a record with the deliberate intention of publishing it. He did circulate reports about Borley among his family, a very different, private matter, and who can criticise him for that?

  One aspect of Foyster's time at Borley is that, like a number of people closely associated with the Rectory, especially those who lived within its walls, the place and its atmosphere seemed to seriously damage his health. His arthritis has already been mentioned, and during his last sermon at Borley he collapsed at the pulpit. When the Foysters moved to Ipswich, Marianne having 'married' a Mr Fisher though still Lionel's legal wife, he lay almost totally crippled and confined to bed in the same house, and was often mistaken for Marianne's father because of his appearance. Strangely enough, Marianne, though she also lived in the Rectory for almost five years, lived longer than most of the former tenants.

  The Reverend Lionel Algernon Foyster died at Dairy Cottages, Rendlesham, Suffolk, on April 26, 1945, aged 67 years and was buried in the parish churchyard of Campsey Ashe, beneath a headstone simply inscribed 'Lionel Foyster, Priest, 1878-1945'.

  We must now turn to the next player upon the strange stage of Borley Rectory.

  To relate the story of Borley Rectory and its curiosities without telling something of Marianne Foyster would be like Conan Doyle writing Sherlock Holmes whilst forgetting Dr Watson. Harry Price was an integral part of the story of Borley Rectory and was inseparable from it! Much the same could be said of Marianne Foyster.

  It is not easy to point to hard evidence to substantiate the accusations sometimes made that Marianne used Borley Rectory's reputation to fraudulently maintain its haunted background for her own ends. On the other hand, it could be fairly said, without any disrespect, that she was in many ways a curious woman who didn't quite fit into any established slot in society but rather seemed to have functioned in a fascinating world of her own.

  This enigmatic lady was born on January 26, 1899, in Romiley, Cheshire, the daughter of William Shaw and Anne Woodyatt. Their little daughter was christened 'Emily Rebecca Marianne' but throughout the years she has simply been referred to as Marianne.

  Even at the time, her later role as Lionel Foyster's wife was almost foretold, because the Foysters and the Shaws were even then acquainted, and it is said that Lionel as a young curate baptised Marianne. There was to be a curious sequel to this later.

  Marianne began her rather curious married life at the age of 15, when she was wedded to an Irishman, H. G. Greenwood, giving her age as 17. That was to be the first of many occasions on which she lied about her age, something that is said to be a woman's privilege, though Marianne did rather exploit this. The couple had a child during 1915, later to travel to Canada with his mother, where Lionel Foyster paid for the child's education. By about 1920 this, her first marriage, seems to have 'dissolved into limbo', though there appears to be no record of a divorce or annulment, and she left England for Canada, the beginning of a long association with North America that she was to renew some years later. It was there in the town of Salmonhurst, New Brunswick, that she married Lionel Algernon Foyster on August 22, 1922.

  Lionel is said to have boasted to the man who married them about having baptised Marianne as a child, and he is said to have been shocked when the other priest told him that the marriage was not right in the eyes of God, because Foyster was Marianne's spiritual father. The point is perhaps arguable.

  Marianne's marriage to Greenwood was allegedly terminated at the whim of her parents by a legal separation, which considering that Marianne was only 15 when first she married is not impossible. Greenwood later died in Australia, but during their brief marriage the couple had a son named Ian. It is interesting to note, however, that Greenwood was apparently dead by the time Marianne married Lionel Foyster, and if that is so it invalidates at least one accusation of bigamy against Marianne.

  Two years after their marriage, the Foysters came to Borley for a short holiday in 1924. It was during this time that Marianne became acquainted with Harry Bull and one does rather wonder what might have passed between them, given Marianne's tendency to waywardness with various men. She and Lionel returned to Canada and did not see Borley again for six years.

  They lived in Canada until 1930 when in response to appeals by the Bull family Lionel came home to England with Marianne and their adopted daughter, Adelaide. Adelaide Barbara Alice Tower was born on March 20, 1928, her mother dying in childbirth and her father dying shortly afterwards as a result of fatal injuries suffered in a farming accident.

  It was following this tragedy that she was adopted by Lionel and Marianne Foyster, but in 1940 she was put into an orphanage, the reason given by critics of Marianne was that she had grown tired of looking after the girl. It has to be said that the combination of her adopted father's ill health and her adopted mother's liking for relationships with other men was perhaps not a viable situation in which to bring up an orphan.

  After 1940 there is little record of what became of Adelaide though it is believed she was reunited with Ian in the 1990s.

  Much the same appears to have happened to Ivy Brackenbury after Harry Bull died. From 1927 onwards, there is almost no trace of her in the Borley annals.

  Marianne's marriage to Lionel, whom she referred to as 'Lion', lasted in spite of her would-be marriage to a Mr Fisher, until Lionel Foyster died in 1945. Marianne's next and last husband was Mr O'Neil, with whom, not long after the Second World War, she returned to North America. She is said to have eventually divorced him because of his excessive drinking, but what is certain is that when he died Marianne resigned herself to a remaining life without a partner.

  She remained in North America until her death, when in her nineties in 1992, but her true identity was unknown to most people around her, and apparently she was in terror of any fresh public interest in her links with Borley Rectory. It is obvious that she wished to be left in peace, and when one sees some of the results of publicity about her and her private life, one can hardly blame her.

  Now, however, we must come to her time at Borley with Lionel Foyster. Much has been said about Marianne and her years at the Rectory, and it would be fair to say that she was a curious person, at least in the context of Borley. However, it would also be true to say that a lot of the criticism of her has arisen out of the attitudes of people who perhaps expected Marianne to be something she was not ... namely a very ordinary and conventional vicar's wife. That was something that really she would never be.

  Numerous Borley folk, even today, refer to Marianne as 'that strange woman' and yet perhaps it is not entirely surprising that she might appear strange to a community made up of rather conservative and perhaps somewhat austere rural folk with old-fashioned ideas and morals. Marianne was of a rather different stamp, young and lively and fond of fun and bright lights and men. It is not at all unreasonable, in view of Marianne's origins, to suggest that maybe she found the Borley folk as odd as they thought her to be.

  A number of points about Marianne seem quite plain. She had a rather inconsistent interest in children, having care of at least three whilst at Borley ... little Adelaide; young master Pearless who was Francois d'Arles' little son, brought to the Rectory as a playmate for Adelaide; and John Emery, a little baby who died only a short time after birth, and was buried in the churchyard at Borley. Tha
t death is known to have upset d'Arles and very likely Marianne as well. The book, The Ghosts of Borley, tells us that Borley folk could still remember d'Arles weeping at the grave. But to return to Marianne ...

  She looked after her husband who was often ill with either arthritis or heart trouble, and for the most part they co-existed peaceably enough as far as the disturbances at the Rectory allowed.

  There seems little doubt that Marianne found Borley Rectory depressing and isolated, but then so did Mabel Smith, who found it more difficult to come to terms with the Rectory and its strangeness. Marianne, however, seems to have found ways of alleviating this lack of fizz in her life by occasionally taking herself off to something more lively.

  There has been much criticism of her for the various affairs in which she was involved while married to Lionel, and it is no secret that she enjoyed the company of various would-be suitors during those days. One correspondent described her to me as an 'adventuress of the first order' and others have referred to her as 'a little beast'.

  It is admittedly all too easy to condemn her as such on first impressions. Remember that even Harry Price viewed her as a fraud at the beginning of his sometimes stormy and foreshortened relationship with the Foysters. But as so often happens, there were two sides to the story, and it is claimed that Lionel Foyster not only knew all about Marianne's men friends, but is said to have actually suggested that she should be looking to the future after his death. Foyster himself was well aware of his own failing health, and appeared to be liberal-minded enough to be concerned at the prospect of Marianne being left in lonely widowhood.

  Against Foyster's apparent knowledge and acceptance of his wife's affairs, it should be mentioned that various people who knew the couple while they were at Borley have suggested that Lionel Foyster was infatuated with his much younger wife and, in his eyes, she could do no wrong. If that is the case, then one could suggest that as the couple remained man and wife for 23 years, the infatuation in this case was certainly positive.