George Pickingill

George Pickingill (c. 1816 – 10 April 1909) was an En-glish farm labourer who lived and worked in the village ofCanewdon in the eastern English county of Essex. Widelyconsidered to be a cunning man, or vocational folk ma-gician, he reportedly employed magical means to offercures for ailments and to locate lost property, althoughwas also alleged to have threatened to curse people’s prop-erty.Born into a rural working-class family, Pickingill grewup in Hockley, Essex and was baptised into the Churchof England. Working as a farm labourer, in 1856 he mar-ried Sarah Ann Bateman in Gravesend, Kent. The couplemoved back to Essex, settled in Canewdon and had fourchildren. Pickingill’s wife died in 1887, and in later lifehe attracted limited press attention for his claim to be oneof the oldest men in England. These claims also appearedin his obituaries, although were later shown to be incor-rect.Pickingill was brought to wider public attention in theearly 1960s by the folklorist Eric Maple. As part of hisresearch into beliefs regarding folk magic and witchcraftin nineteenth-century Essex, Maple had interviewed anumber of Canewdon residents and collected their sto-ries about Pickingill and his reputation as a cunning man.According to their accounts, Pickingill attracted visitorsfrom around Essex seeking his magical help, for whichhe did not charge. They attributed to him the powerto control animals, to command imps to do his bidding,and to wield power over either six or nine malevolentwitches who lived in Canewdon. It was also claimedthat he was able to coerce assistance and beer from lo-cal residents by threatening to place a curse upon them ortheir belongings. Although it has been suggested that lo-cal people were inventing claims to please Maple, manyof which were based on older tales regarding the Essexcunning man James Murrell, subsequent research by his-torian Ronald Hutton has confirmed aspects of the folk-lorist’s original accounts.In the 1970s, the occultist E.W. “Bill” Liddell beganpublicising claims that secretive hereditary witch fam-ilies had informed him that Pickingill was not simplya rural cunning man but that he was a major figure inthe nineteenth-century esoteric community. Accordingto Liddell’s account—which has failed to receive anyscholarly support—Pickingill was a member of a hered-itary witch-cult, leading a Canewdon coven and form-ing nine other covens across southern England. Lid-dell claimed that Pickingill reformed the established En-glish witch-cult by introducing new concepts from French

and Danish witchcraft and from Classical sources, andthat in doing so, Pickingill created the structure fromwhich Gardnerian Wicca emerged in the 1950s. Promi-nent Wiccans Doreen Valiente and Lois Bourne have ex-pressed criticism of his claims, which have also beenrejected as spurious by such scholars of Pagan studiesand magical history as Maple, Hutton, Owen Davies, andAidan A. Kelly.

1 Biography

1.1 Life and family

George Pickingill was the son of Charles Pickingill, alabourer and blacksmith, and Susannah Cudner, a womanwho also went by the name of Hannah Cudmore; the cou-ple had married on 17 September 1813.[3] Although hehad no known birth record, according to parish records,George Pickingill was baptised on 26 May 1816 at thechurch in Hockley.[3] The year of Pickingill’s birth ishowever in question, as he made differing claims in dif-ferent censuses; in the 1851 census, he claimed to be 26,meaning that his birth would have occurred circa 1825,while in the 1861 census, he claimed to be 46, whichwould have placed his birth c.1815. By the time of the1901 census, he was claiming to be 95, moving his birthto c.1806; it has been suggested that he made himself ap-pear older to ease the process of collecting parish assis-tance from the church.[4] Throughout his life, Pickingillwould also use a variety of different spellings of his sur-name on official records, including Pickengill, Pickingale,Pickengal, Pettingale, Pitengale, and Pittengale.[3]

It is apparent from census data that Pickingill livedwith his parents from 1816 until the 1830s, althoughit is not stated where he was living at the time of the1841 census.[4] In 1851, he was recorded as lodgingin the household of David Clemens in Little Waker-ing, Essex, and describing himself as a farm labourer byprofession.[4] On 18 May 1856 he married Sarah AnnBateman at St George’s Church, an Anglican church inGravesend, Kent.[4] In that record, both Pickingill andBateman described themselves as residing in Gravesend,and Pickingill declared that he was working as a labourer;no profession was listed for Bateman.[4] Bateman wasborn c.1831 in Tillingham, Essex, as the daughter ofJoseph Bateman and his wife Mary Ann Aggus; through-out married life, she identified as “Mary Ann Pickingill”and appeared as “Sarah Ann Pittengale” in her burial

1

2 1 BIOGRAPHY

record.[4]

On 22 June 1858 the couple’s daughter, Martha Ann, wasborn in Hawkwell, Essex. By 1861 they had moved toEastwood, Essex, where they were recorded in that year’scensus.[4] Here, Pickingill described himself as an agri-cultural labourer.[4] That same year, their son CharlesFrederick was born.[4] The following year, Pickingill’swife was caught stealing two pecks of potatoes, and sub-sequently fined ten shillings.[4] In 1863, a second daugh-ter, named Mary Ann, was born to the couple.[4]

"[Pickingill] still gets his own meals ready, and fills inodd moments by pottering about in the garden. 'Yes, I'ma hundred and five,' he said, 'and feel good for another 20years. I was born in Hockley, and I've been in these parts,working on farms, all my life. I only stopped workingat 90.' The aged man has never seen a railway train. APress representative took the 'old boy' for a ride round ina motor car, much to his delight. 'I'd like to go to Londonon it,' he said. 'I've never been to London.' When askedhow to live to be 105, he laughed and said, 'You just goon living – that’s all.' He still likes his pipe of tobacco andmug of ale.”— Essex Newsman, 19 September 1908.[4]

At some point in the coming four years, the Pickingillfamily moved to Canewdon, where another son, George,was born in 1876.[4] The couple and their four childrenwere then recorded in the 1871 census, where Pickingillwas again listed as working as an agricultural labourer.[4]In the 1881 census, the couple were recorded as liv-ing with two of their children, Mary Ann and George,and Pickingill was again identifying as a labourer.[4] On17 August 1887, a homeless man named James Taylorstole a jacket and pair of leather gloves from Pickingill.Taylor was arrested and brought to trial in Rochford on24 August; in October, he pleaded guilty to the theftof the jacket, although not to those of the other items.He was sentenced to six months imprisonment with hardlabour.[4]

On 13 September 1887 Pickingill’s wife died at the ageof 63 in Canewdon; her death was attributed to a diseaseof the liver by the certifying doctor.[4] She was buriedat Canewdon’s St. Nicholas Church on 17 September.[4]According to the 1891 census, Pickingill was still em-ployed as an agricultural labourer, and was living inCanewdon with his married daughter Marry Ann and hisgranddaughter, EmilyWood.[4] Records show that he wasliving in a rented cottage with an adjacent garden, and thatin July 1899 the owner sold the property at auction.[4] By1901 he was listed as living on parish relief, with his twosons back living with him.[4]

By this time, Pickingill was increasingly inflating his age,eventually claiming that he was 105 years old. This at-tracted attention from other areas, including London, andin September 1908 a journalist visited Canewdon; he ar-rived by automobile, the first that Pickingill had ever seen,

and allowed the old man to ride in it.[4] The journal-ist subsequently wrote an article about the alleged cen-tegenerian, in which he claimed that his name was “Fred-erick Pickingale"; it is possible that Pickingill gave thefalse name so that no one would be able to look up theparish records and discover his real age.[4] Maple de-scribed Pickingill as “a tall, unkempt man, solitary anduncommunicative. He had very long finger-nails, andkept his money in a purse of sacking”. He also notedthat he had worked as a farm labourer and that he was awidower with two sons.[5]

1.2 Magical activities

Aerial photo of Canewdon, 2007

The first printed account of Pickingill that described himas a cunning man appeared fifty years after his death.[6]This was provided by the folkorist Eric Maple, who wasmaking a systematic study of nineteenth-century tradi-tions regarding witchcraft and magic in south-easternEssex,[7] and who examined the case of Canewdon inthe winter of 1959–60.[8] He had begun his enquiriesby meeting with a number of elderly local residents atthe home of the schoolmistress, from whom he gaineda variety of tales pertaining to magical practices in thevillage.[9] His initial findings were published in 1960 inthe scholarly journal Folklore, produced by The Folk-lore Society.[7] He subsequently produced a sensation-alist popular history of witchcraft, The Dark World ofWitches (1962), in which he repeated many of the claimsregarding Pickingill. In this work, he erroneously de-scribed south-eastern Essex as the last bastion of Englishwitchcraft beliefs, and ignored scholarly conventions inrelating his information, resulting in a critical receptionfrom folklorists; the book nevertheless was popular andsold well.[10]

Maple noted that, unusually—given his role as a cunningman—Pickingill did not charge for his services, but didreceive some money from visitors, and that his recordedroles included restoring lost property and curing minorailments, both of which were common practices amongstBritish cunning folk.[11] According to one account, hecured a woman of rheumatism by transferring the ail-

1.2 Magical activities 3

ment to her father.[5] Maple wrote that Pickingill wasknown to use cursing and malevolent magic on occasion,something that the folklorist contrasted with the activi-ties of other contemporary cunning folk that he had stud-ied, such as James Murrell.[5] At harvest time, Maplerecorded, Pickingill was known to wander around thefield threatening to bewitch farm machinery, with manyfarmers thus offering him beer so that he would leavethem alone.[12] He was also recorded as coercing localpeople to obtain water for him from the village pump bythreatening to set upon them white mice, a rodent whichin local folklore was associated with misfortune.[5] An-other tale that Maple recorded also associated Pickingillwith white mice; according to this, a visitor travelled tothe cunning man’s cottage only to find him lying in bed,with the mice suckling from his nipples.[13]

Pickingill was also known for his purported ability to con-trol animals, namely horses, and it was believed that whenhe struck a hedgerow with his stick, game animals wouldrun out that could then be caught, killed and eaten.[13] Itwas also rumoured that he could do things faster than or-dinary human beings, and that he could do an hour’s jobin only a few minutes, with some believing that he gothis imps—his familiar spirits—to do the job for him.[14]Maple also noted that people who visited his cottage re-ported seeing ornaments and furniture dancing aroundthe room of their own accord; the folklorist believed thatthis story had originated in a Dutch folkloric tradition thatmay have been imported to Essex when many Dutch mi-grants settled there in the seventeenth century.[15]

According to Maple, Pickingill was sufficiently wellknown in Essex as an accomplished cunning man thatpeople came to visit him from outside Canewdon insearch of magical aid, sometimes “from great distances”,including men from the Essex village of Dengie, whosought his advice in a wage dispute.[16] Meanwhile, asMaple noted, Canewdon had developed a reputation as-sociating it with witchcraft and magic by the end of thenineteenth century, when it was often thought of as “TheWitch Country” and avoided by many wagoners whofeared having their vehicles bewitched.[8] This was possi-bly due to its relative isolation from neighbouring settle-ments, as it was surrounded by marshland, and the insularnature of its community.[8] Maple recorded that in thisperiod there was a rumour that there were either six ornine elderly women living in Canewdon who were malev-olent witches and used their magic to harm others. It wasbelieved that whilst they were not known to one another,they all owed their allegiance to a singular wizard or mas-ter of witches,[17] and there was a rumour in the localcommunity that Pickingill himself was this figure.[13] Itwas claimed that as “Master of Witches”, Pickingill sim-ply had to whistle in order for these nine witches to standby their front doors and reveal their identities,[18] or thatalternately he could “will them” to dance for him in thelocal churchyard.[13]

“When my sister and I were children, we wanted to ride

our pony and trap to Rochford Fair; but that day thebeast just wouldn't move, no matter what we did with it.Thenwe suddenly sawGeorge Pickingill staring at us withthose terrible eyes of his. He came over and told us to putdown the reins and not to interfere with the pony at all.Then he whispered in its ear for a few minutes and stoodback and hit it; and it started off, and found its way downthe lanes to Rochford, without our needing to touch it.”— Jack Taylor, interviewed by Ronald Hutton, 1967.[19]

Subsequent researchers also travelled to Canewdon tomeet with Maple’s informants and confirm his accountfor themselves. In April 1967 Ronald Hutton visited thevillage where he met with elderly resident Lillian Gar-ner, who had been one of Maple’s informants. He alsofound an informant that Maple had not encountered, anold man named Jack Taylor, then living in a retirementhome. Taylor claimed that as a young man he knewPickingill, and that the latter had the power of horse-whispering—the magical ability to command horses todo his bidding. On the whole, Hutton found that theaccount of Pickingill among the local people to whomhe spoke was entirely consistent with that provided byMaple.[19][lower-alpha 2] In 1977 Hutton was followed by theGardnerian Wiccan initiate Michael Howard, who metwith Garner, then eighty-seven years old.[21] On this oc-casion, she recalled Pickingill being photographed withthe first car to arrive in the village, and also gave Howardthe original copy of a photograph of him that was in herpossession.[22] She then added the information—whichshe had not given to Maple or Hutton—that her ownmother had talked of Pickingill leading a local coven, andthat he received “many visitors” from “a long way away”who sought his magical knowledge.[1]

A different account was provided by Charles Lefeb-vre, an American author of the sensationalist Witness toWitchcraft (1970). Here, his use of sources was unclear,although he asserted that Pickingill had had an agelessbody, was a relative of Roma people, was the last sur-vivor of an old witch family, held Black Masses and or-gies in the church yard, and was visited by “black ma-gicians” from across Europe. According to Lefebvre,Pickingill was finally killed when confronted by the signof the cross.[23] Hutton later described these as “fantasies”which served to support Lefebvre’s view that witchcraftshould be criminalised.[19]

However, claims have since been made that Pickingillwas not a cunning man or involved in folk magic at all.Local Canewdon historian Sylvia Webster expressed herview to Howard that tales regarding Pickingill’s magicalpractices had been invented by the locals of Canewdon toimpress Maple. Supporting this position, she highlightedthat there was no evidence to suggest that Pickingill wasa cunning man prior to Maple’s publications.[24] Simi-larly, Richard Ward argued that the contemporary obitu-aries and interviews conducted with Pickingill had shown

4 2 BILL LIDDELL’S CLAIMS

no evidence of any magical activities, when such mighthave been expected.[25] Ward suggested that many ofthe stories regarding Pickingill’s magical activities wereadapted from those of a genuine Essex cunning man,James Murrell.[25] Hutton responded critically to Ward’sclaims, highlighting his own investigations into the lo-cal folklore and his interview with Taylor to express theview that there “seems little doubt” that Pickingill wasa cunning man, although “there are still questions overwhat sort of one he was”.[26] At the same time, Hut-ton also accepted the possibility that some of the leg-ends associated with Murrell had come to be associatedwith Pickingill, although stated that this seemed to be“incapable of solid proof”.[26] In his counter-response toHutton, Ward accepting that Pickingill could have beenassociated with “some apparent supernatural control orknowledge of horses” as Taylor had claimed, but that thisdid not automatically make him a cunning man, for whichthere remained no contemporary historical evidence.[27]

1.3 Death

Canewdon’s St Nicholas Church, Pickingill’s burial site

According to Maple’s account, in the last few weeks ofPickingill’s life, when he had become very ill, the lo-cal people moved him to the infirmary against his will,where he declared that at his funeral there would be onemore demonstration of his magical powers. Many localsinterpreted this as coming true when as the hearse car-rying his coffin drew up to the churchyard, the horsesstepped out of their harness shafts.[13] His body was sub-sequently buried in the church’s graveyard, whilst his

abandoned house gradually became dilapidated beforefalling down.[15]

According to his death certificate, “George Pettingale”died on 10 April 1909 at the age of 103, and his cause ofdeath was “senile decay” and “cardiac failure”.[4] He wasburied at Canewdon’s St Nicholas Church on 14 April;although his stated age of 103 was recorded, the vicaradded a note asserting that this was erroneous, for in re-ality Pickingill was “born at Hockley 1816 [and] was onlyin his 93rd year”.[4]

Pickingill’s death attracted national press attention. It wasclaimed in both the Essex Newsman and The Times thathe was “believed to be the oldest man in England"; thesepublications recorded his age as 106.[4] The story was alsopicked up by New Zealand newspaper The Star, in whichhe was described as “the oldest man in England”.[4]

According to Maple, Pickingill left “a legacy of mythwhich is curiously alien to the general run of witch tradi-tions. In all the stories told of Pickingill there is a subtleundercurrent of horror which one finds hard to pinpoint.Possibly it arises from the fact that many of those whorecount the tales actually knew the man and experiencedjust such a quiet terror when he passed them in the villagestreet.”[12]

2 Bill Liddell’s claims

In 1974, a writer began sending articles to Pagan newslet-ter The Wiccan, then edited by the Gardnerian Wic-can John Score, articulating an alternative account ofPickingill’s life and relation to the British occult move-ment. First identifying himself only as “a well wisher”,he later began using the pseudonym Lugh, named for theIrish mythological figure.[28] In 1977, Lugh ceased send-ing the articles to The Wiccan and instead began publish-ing them in a rival Britishmagazine, The Cauldron, editedby Michael Howard; he claimed to have switched outletsbecause The Wiccan had been too dominated by Gardne-rian perspectives.[29] Lugh later revealed his name to beE.W. “Bill” Liddell, describing himself as an Englishmanborn in Essex. He added that circa 1960 he had moved toAuckland, New Zealand, before later relocating to Aus-tralia, fromwhere he wrote his articles.[30] In a 1984 letterhe noted that he was not born with the surname of Lid-dell but had instead adopted it later in life.[31] Claimingthat Pickingill had been the first-cousin of his paternalgreat-great grandfather, Liddell asserted that he had beeninitiated into his family’s hereditary form of witchcraftin 1950,[32] and that he had subsequently been initiatedinto both the Gardnerian and Alexandrian traditions ofWicca.[33] His partner, Sylvia Tatham, had been heavilyinvolved in the development of the Alexandrian traditionin the early 1960s, having been one of those present whenits founder, Alex Sanders, was initiated into the Gardne-rian tradition.[34] In 1982, Wiccan Publications collected

2.1 Liddell’s account 5

together and published these articles as two pamphlets:Old George Pickingill and the Roots of Modern Witchcraftand Medieval Witchcraft and the Freemasons.[35] The ar-ticles were republished in one single volume in 1994 asThe Pickingill Papers, edited by Liddell and Howard.[36]

“The Lugh corpus was expressly written to be confronta-tional. Several surviving Craft families, a number ofsolitaries, and my own Brethren were at first amused –and then alarmed – at the Witchcraft beliefs being pro-pounded by Gerald Gardner and Alex Sanders. Thetenets of Wicca bore little resemblance to the rites andpractices of Traditional Witchcraft in England. MyBrethren decided to take the bull by the horns and finda public platform to explain that there were a number ofdisparate witch traditions.”— Bill Liddell, 1999.[37]

Liddell’s claims regarding Pickingill are self-contradictory.[36] Liddell explained this by statingthat the information contained in his articles had beenpassed on to him by three separate sources, all of whichhad decided to use him as a mouthpiece for their ownclaims. The first were the members of a hereditarytradition of Pagan witchcraft, while the second werethe practitioners of a similar yet separate tradition ofPagan witchcraft which, Liddell alleged, had been greatlyinfluenced by Pickingill in the nineteenth century. Thethird source cited by Liddell was his own experiencesgained from being born into a witchcraft family and sub-sequently being initiated into both of the aforementionedtraditions and a separate “cunning lodge”.[38] He claimedthat most of the information that he was publishing camefrom “Elders”, or older members, involved in the firsttwo of these traditions, and that as such he could notvouch for its accuracy,[36] going so far as to state that hedoubted the veracity of much of it.[39]

Noting that these Elders themselves had very differentopinions on Gardnerian Wicca,[40] he also stated that theElders ceased providing him with new information inthe early 1980s.[36] He stated that these various Eldershad chosen him to disseminate the information becausehe had been involved in both hereditary witchcraft andGardnerian Wicca and because he was based in NewZealand, thereby making it hard for anyone to trace theiridentities.[41] Despite Liddell claiming that the materialhe was putting forward came from various sources, thehistorian Ronald Hutton noted that it was all presentedin a “single, dogmatic, authorial voice”, with no indica-tion of where the different pieces of information camefrom.[42] Hutton also asserted that Liddell’s changingclaims would be entirely consistent with a single individ-ual making up stories and changing them as they wentalong.[42]

2.1 Liddell’s account

According to Liddell’s initial 1974 claims, since theeleventh century the Pickingill family had been priestsof a pre-Christian, pagan religion devoted to the worshipof the Horned God.[43] In this, his claims fitted withinthe historical framework of the discredited witch-cult hy-pothesis as propagated in the works of Margaret Mur-ray.[44] Later he added that the “medieval witch cult”was influenced by the “tenets” of the Iron Age druids,in particular their knowledge of ley lines which weremarked out by the stone circles erected in the Neolithicand Bronze Ages.[45] Conflicting with these ideas, in 1998Liddell personally informed Hutton that the witch-cultdid not derive from ancient pre-Christian religion but thatit instead had been founded in fifteenth-century France,emerging from a union between Christian heretics, cun-ning lodges, and a cult of Lucifer founded by IslamicMoors with the intent of undermining Christianity.[44]

"[George Pickingill] was more famous in his heydey thanCrowley was in his. Old George was acknowledged as theworld’s greatest living authority on witchcraft, Satanismand black magic. He was consulted by occultists of everyhue and tradition who came from all over Europe, Eng-land and even America.”— Bill Liddell, 1974.[46]

Liddell claimed that the Pickingill family had many linksto the travelling Romani population, and that Pickingillspent many of his early years in a Romani caravan. Lid-dell claimed that Pickingill faced persecution as a re-sult, and that he “set out to terrify” the locals of Canew-don in retaliation.[47] According to Liddell, Pickingill wastrained in Romani magic, and thus in later life became“the most famous gypsy kako in England”.[48] Liddell alsoclaimed that Pickingill despised Christianity and wantedto see it overthrown; to this end he collaborated withSatanists and included Satanic elements within his ritualpractices, something which horrified other members ofthe East Anglian witch-cult.[46] Thus, according to Lid-dell, Pickingill was “England’s most feared and vilified'Satanist'".[49] Elsewhere, he stressed that Pickingill wasnot a Satanist, but rather that he had been considered suchby other witches because he practised sex magic.[50]

Liddell asserted that Pickingill spent time in France,where he was initiated into a local form of the witch-cult.[48] According to this account, upon his returnto Canewdon, Pickingill was invited to lead a localcoven which had been operating since the mid-fifteenthcentury—the “Seven Witches of Canewdon”—and thathe continued to lead the group until disbanding it severalyears prior to his death.[51] Liddell added that Pickingillproceeded to introduce many new innovations into theEnglish witch-cult by applying concepts borrowed fromthe Danish and French witch-cults, namely the idea thatthe coven should be led by a woman.[52] Liddell asserted

6 2 BILL LIDDELL’S CLAIMS

that Pickingill then established nine covens in England,spread out in Essex, Norfolk, Hertfordshire, Sussex, andHampshire;[53] he further added that two of those covens,based in Hertfordshire and Norfolk, survived into at leastthe 1970s.[54] According to Liddell, Pickingill was prop-agating witchcraft in a reformed, female-oriented formbecause the oncoming Age of Aquarius would be morereceptive to this form of spirituality.[55]

In Liddell’s account, Pickingill travelled widely andjoined a variety of cunning lodges, gaining access to theirgrimoires and libraries.[56] According to Liddell, fromthe 1850s onward Pickingill began co-operating with agroup of Freemasons who considered themselves to beRosicrucians and who wanted to prove that Freemasonryand Rosicrucianism were “siblings” of the witch-cult.[57]Two of these Freemasons, Hargrave Jennings and W.J.Hughan, became pupils of Pickingill, who aided them inproducing a Rosicrucian Manifesto that was used in theformation of the Societas Rosicruciana in 1865.[58] Ac-cording to Liddell, Pickingill’s involvement with Freema-sons also led to the foundation of the Hermetic Orderof the Golden Dawn in 1888.[59] Liddell also assertedthat Pickingill was influenced by a coven that had beenfounded in the early nineteenth-century by a group ofCambridge University academics led by Francis Bar-rett and whose rituals were based largely on Classicalsources.[60]

“The rites [George Pickingill] drafted emphasised ritualnudity, nature worship, the unity of the Goddess, fe-male dominance, the five-fold kiss—without the words'Blessed Be'—the Drawing Down of the Moon, the God-dess Charge, the Legend of the Goddess, induction bythe opposite sex, a tri-gradal initiation structure, the useof magical cords etc. It is difficult not to recognise thebasic features of what is now Gardnerian Wicca.”— Bill Liddell, 1984.[61]

Liddell also claimed that the prominent occultist AleisterCrowley had been initiated into one of these nine covensas a young man. According to this account, Crowleyhad been introduced to the coven in 1899 or 1900 by hismagical mentor, Allan Bennett.[62] Liddell asserted thatCrowley was subsequently ejected from the coven for hismisbehaviour.[63] As evidence for these claims, he statedthat his own grandfather had been present on three occa-sions at which Bennett and Crowley met with Pickingill,and that he had seen a photograph in which the three fig-ures are together.[62] When asked to present this photo-graph for public scrutiny in 1977, Liddell claimed that itwas “not available"; when independently asked again in1983, he asserted that it had been stolen by “interestedparties”.[64]

Further, Liddell stated that one of Pickingill’s covens wasthe New Forest coven, a Wiccan group which GeraldGardner—the founder of Gardnerian Wicca—claimedhad initiated him in 1939. However, Liddell did later

state that he was not certain whether this was true. Healso asserted that Gardner later joined another of thePickingill covens, based in Hertfordshire, through whichhe received “the Second Rite of the Hereditary Craft”.Liddell stressed that this group was separate from Gard-ner’s own Bricket Wood coven. He furthermore claimedthat Gardner received the “Third Rite” from an EastAnglian coven, with this three-degree system of initia-tion influencing that in Gardnerian Wicca.[65] As a re-sult, he stated that the structure and rituals of GardnerianWicca were based on those devised by Pickingill, and that“no impartial observer could fail to see that they formedthe nucleus of the rites of Wicca.”[48] Liddell believedthat while many hereditary witches despised him, Gard-ner represented “the spiritual heir of Pickingill”, becausehe had similarly reformed and propagated witchcraft forcontemporary purposes.[53]

2.2 Pagan response

Liddell’s claims have received a mixed response from theBritish Wiccan community. Score championed them inprivate letters to his correspondents, declaring that theyproved that the Gardnerian tradition had historical ori-gins predating Gardner.[66] His successor as editor ofThe Wiccan, Leonora James, was intrigued by Liddell’sclaims and investigated the original records pertaining toPickingill’s life, however by the 1980s she had concludedthat Liddell’s claims were spurious.[36] In her 1978 bookWitchcraft for Tomorrow, the Wiccan Doreen Valiente– who had been Gardner’s High Priestess in the BricketWood coven during the 1950s—stated that she had an“East Anglian source” from Essex who claimed that manyof Liddell’s assertions were correct. In particular, the in-formant championed Liddell’s claims that Crowley hadbeen an initiate of one of Pickingill’s covens.[67] By thetime of her 1989 bookThe Rebirth ofWitchcraft, Valientewas more sceptical of Liddell’s claims, noting that anysupporting evidence was “still sadly lacking”.[68]

Lois Bourne (pictured in 2010) is one of the prominent Wiccansto have criticised Liddell’s claims.

Another of Gardner’s High Priestesses, Lois Bourne, as-

2.3 Academic response 7

serted that she was “as sure as I can be” that Gardner hadnothing to do with any witches from Canewdon and thatif they existed in the first place, then they must have be-longed to a tradition distinct from Gardnerian Wicca.[69]Privately, the Gardnerian initiate and founder of Alexan-drian Wicca, Alex Sanders, rejected the claims that Lid-dell made.[70] In his 2013 biography of Valiente, JonathanTapsell stated that the Liddell material was “generally re-garded as a hoax”, being “a spurious history at best, ora malicious prank at worst.”[71] Hutton asserted that theonly “sustained champion” of Liddell’s claims has beenMichael Howard, noting that he had defended such ideasin a “limited and measured” manner.[36] Pagan studiesscholar Ethan Doyle White noted that in his history ofthe Traditional Witchcraft movement, Children of Cain,Howard “remains cautious and refrains from accepting[Liddell’s claims] outright”.[72] Howard has maintainedthat he keeps an “open mind” about Liddell’s claims,noting that while no evidence has been brought forwardto substantiate them, similarly he does not believe that“any real evidence” has been brought forth to disprovethem.[73]

Support for Liddell’s story came from Cecil Williamson,founder of the Museum of Witchcraft, who claimedto have known about Pickingill through his acquain-tances with both Crowley and Gardner.[74] However,Williamson was an unreliable source, and was knownto repeatedly fabricate claims regarding past events.[75]Another figure, known only as Colonel Lawrence, alsosupported Liddell’s story, asserting that his own great-grandmother had studied under Pickingill and thus hadbeen introduced to Crowley; as with Williamson’s, how-ever, Lawrence’s claims are unreliable, particularly ashe has made the unsupported claim that his great-grandmother studied witchcraft under the Americanfolklorist Charles Leland.[76] Also supporting Liddell’sclaims was the Wiccan Ralph Harvey, who, followingthe publication of Liddell’s material, publicly declaredthat in the 1950s or 1960s he had been initiated intoone of Pickingill’s Nine Covens, located in Storrington,Sussex.[77] Following the publication of Liddell’s claims,a number of covens appeared in both the United Statesand Australia claiming to be practitioners of a traditionoriginating with Pickingill.[36] Liddell himself has beencritical of such groups, expressing his regret that the ma-terial he published led to their formation.[78]

2.3 Academic response

Liddell’s claims have had a far more critical receptionfrom scholars specialising in magic and witchcraft inBritish history. In 1975, Eric Maple dismissed Lugh’sclaims as preposterous. He believed that such tales hadbeen fabricated by someone who had used his own book,The Dark World of Witches, as a basis.[79] Maple in-formed the historian James W. Baker that he believedpeople connected to Valiente were behind the Lugh

Liddell’s assertion that occultist Aleister Crowley (pictured in1912)was an initiate of one of Pickingill’s covens has been heav-ily scrutinised and discredited.

claims, although Baker disagreed, commenting that Va-liente was “one of the most honest of commentators onthe subject” of contemporary witchcraft, and that as aresult was unlikely to be involved in such duplicity.[79]Baker described Liddell’s account as “an extravaganthoax”, with its claims constituting “a preposterous ahis-torical muddle”.[80]

Historian Ronald Hutton also scrutinised Liddell’s claims,although added that he had corresponded with Liddell “atlength and in detail”,[36] over the course of which he hadcome to like him, noting that “he has responded to of-ten forceful criticisms with patience, modesty, and goodhumour”.[81] However, Hutton highlighted that no inde-pendent witnesses have emerged to support the existenceof Liddell’s alleged informants, while no supporting doc-umentation has appeared to back any of his many claims.Hutton deemed this particularly unusual, because wereLiddell’s claims to have been accurate, much documen-tary evidence could be expected to exist.[82] Focusing onLiddell’s claim that Crowley had been initiated into oneof Pickingill’s covens during the 1890s, Hutton noted thatthere is no mention of Pickingill or a witches’ coven ineither Crowley’s published work or personal diaries, andthat similarly there was no mention of either in the diariesof Bennett, who was Crowley’s magical tutor during the1890s.[83]

Hutton’s assessment was shared by historian Owen

8 3 REFERENCES

Davies; in his study of English cunning-folk, he de-scribed Liddell’s stories as “seductive but entirely unsub-stantiated”. Instead, he maintained that Pickingill was“a simple rural cunning-man whose small world of vil-lage affairs never crossed with that of middle-class oc-cultists. He received a Christian burial and the ideathat he was a pagan priest would probably make himturn in his grave.”[84] While agreeing with Maple’s as-sessment that Pickingill was “one of the last practisingcunning-folk in the country”, Maple noted that—unlikeMurrell, James Tuckett, John Wrightson, and WilliamBrewer—Pickingill was not a “major regional figure” inthe profession.[85]

American Pagan studies scholar Aidan A. Kelly simi-larly rejected Liddell’s claims. Kelly highlighted thatwhereas Liddell had claimed that Gardnerian Wicca hadadopted the concept of a female coven leader fromFrenchand Scandinavian witch covens, the historical evidenceclearly showed that Gardner developed the concept of acoven being led by a high priestess during the late 1950s,thus disproving Liddell’s assertions.[86] He noted that Lid-dell’s claim that Crowley wrote Gardner’s Book of Shad-ows “cannot possibly be true” because Crowley died be-fore the Book was written.[87] Kelly believed that eitherLiddell or his Elders had purposely created a “phony his-tory” in order to hide the fact that Gardner had inventedWicca in its entirety in the early 1950s.[88] Similarly, ina 2014 article about Pickingill in The Cauldron, RichardWard argued that Liddell’s claims did not stand up un-der scrutiny, and that they had simply been made in anattempt to promote claims regarding the existence of a“pre-Gardnerian tradition” of witchcraft.[31] Liddell hasspecifically denied any charges that he was deliberatelyfalsifying claims to make Gardnerian Wicca appear tohave an older pedigree than it really has.[89]

3 References

3.1 Notes

[1] The original copy of this photograph was owned by Lil-lian Garner, who claimed that it was of George Pickingilland who allowed for it to be first published by Eric Maple;in 1977 she gave her original copy of the photograph toMichael Howard.[1] In a July 1984 issue of Insight maga-zine, a letter was published by John Pope stating that “Thephotograph purporting to be Old George Pickingill is infact a photo of Alf Cavill, a station porter at Elstree, takenin the early 1960s. Alf is now dead, but he was no witch,and laughed over the photograph when he saw it.”[2] Wic-can historian Julia Phillips cautioned however that “a veryrespected Craft authority has told me that he believes thephoto, which is in his possession, to be of Pickingill, andI have no reason to disbelieve him.”[2]

[2] After being queried on the year in question, Ronald Hut-ton confirmed to Michael Howard that the 1967 date wascorrect, and that he had been thirteen years old at the time

in which he undertook these inquiries at Canewdon.[20]

3.2 Footnotes[1] Howard 2011, p. 114.

[2] Phillips 2004.

[3] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 15; Wallworth 2012.

[4] Wallworth 2012.

[5] Maple 1960, p. 247.

[6] Ward 2014a, pp. 21–22.

[7] Hutton 1999, p. 295.

[8] Maple 1960, p. 241.

[9] Maple 1960, p. 242.

[10] Hutton 1999, p. 296.

[11] Maple 1960, p. 247; Maple 1965, p. 185.

[12] Maple 1965, p. 184.

[13] Maple 1960, p. 248.

[14] Maple 1960, p. 248; Maple 1965, pp. 184–185.

[15] Maple 1960, p. 248; Maple 1965, p. 185.

[16] Maple 1960, pp. 247–248.

[17] Maple 1960, pp. 242–243.

[18] Maple 1960, p. 248; Maple 1965, p. 184.

[19] Hutton 1999, p. 297.

[20] Howard 2014b, p. 46.

[21] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 4; Howard 2011, p. 113.

[22] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 4; Howard 2011, p. 114.

[23] Lefebvre 1970, pp. 51–56; Hutton 1999, pp. 296–297.

[24] Howard 2011, p. 134; Ward 2014a, p. 21.

[25] Ward 2014a, p. 22.

[26] Hutton 2014, p. 6.

[27] Ward 2014b, p. 46.

[28] Valiente 1989, p. 197; Hutton 1999, p. 289; Howard2009, p. 44; Howard 2011, pp. 114–115.

[29] Valiente 1989, p. 197; Hutton 1999, p. 289; Howard2011, p. 115.

[30] Hutton 1999, p. 289; Howard 2009, p. 44.

[31] Ward 2014a, p. 21.

[32] Bisseker & Liddell 2006; Howard 2009, pp. 44, 47.

[33] Howard 2009, pp. 44, 47.

3.3 Bibliography 9

[34] Hutton 1999, p. 323.

[35] Valiente 1989, p. 197.

[36] Hutton 1999, p. 290.

[37] Bisseker & Liddell 2006.

[38] Hutton 1999, p. 290; Bisseker & Liddell 2006.

[39] Howard 2009, p. 47.

[40] Howard 2009, p. 45.

[41] Liddell & Howard 1994, pp. 17–18.

[42] Hutton 1999, p. 292.

[43] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 25.

[44] Hutton 1999, p. 291.

[45] Liddell & Howard 1994, pp. 65, 71.

[46] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 27.

[47] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 90.

[48] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 91.

[49] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 23.

[50] Liddell & Howard 1994, pp. 119–120.

[51] Liddell & Howard 1994, pp. 90–91.

[52] Liddell & Howard 1994, pp. 25–26.

[53] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 28.

[54] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 98.

[55] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 118.

[56] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 166.

[57] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 40.

[58] Liddell & Howard 1994, pp. 41–43.

[59] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 41.

[60] Liddell & Howard 1994, pp. 100–101.

[61] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 106.

[62] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 22.

[63] Liddell & Howard 1994, pp. 22–23.

[64] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 33.

[65] Liddell & Howard 1994, pp. 24, 98–99, 104.

[66] Howard 2009, p. 55.

[67] Valiente 1978, pp. 17–20.

[68] Valiente 1989, p. 199.

[69] Bourne 1998, p. 106.

[70] Howard 2009, pp. 55–56.

[71] Tapsell 2013, p. 64.

[72] Doyle White 2011, p. 275.

[73] Howard 2014, p. 22.

[74] Hutton 1999, p. 218.

[75] Hutton 1999, p. 219.

[76] Hutton 1999, pp. 218–219.

[77] Howard 2011, pp. 130–131.

[78] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 14.

[79] Baker 1996, p. 186.

[80] Baker 1996, p. 185.

[81] Hutton 1999, p. 298.

[82] Hutton 1999, pp. 294–295.

[83] Hutton 1999, pp. 220–221.

[84] Davies 2003, p. 194.

[85] Davies 2003, p. 193.

[86] Kelly 1991, pp. 174–175; Kelly 2007, pp. 275–276.

[87] Kelly 1991, p. 174.

[88] Kelly 2007, p. 274.

[89] Liddell & Howard 1994, p. 18.

3.3 Bibliography

Baker, James W. (1996). “WhiteWitches: Historic Fact and Ro-mantic Fantasy”. In James R.Lewis. Magical Religion and Mod-ern Witchcraft. Albany, NewYork: State University of NewYork Press. pp. 171–192. ISBN978-0-7914-2890-0.

Bisseker, Scott; Liddell, Bill(2006). “Old George Pickingilland the History of ModernWitchcraft”. Pickingill.com.Archived from the original on 21December 2014.

Bourne, Lois (1998). Dancing withWitches. London: Robert Hale.ISBN 978-0-7090-6223-3.

Davies, Owen (2003). Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English His-tory. London: Hambledon Contin-uum. ISBN 978-1-84725-036-0.

10 3 REFERENCES

Doyle White, Ethan (2011). “Re-view of Michael Howard’s Childrenof Cain". The Pomegranate:the International Journalof Pagan Studies (Sheffield:Equinox) 13 (2): 274–276.doi:10.1558/pome.v13i2.274.

Howard, Michael (2009). Mod-ern Wicca: A History from Ger-ald Gardner to the Present. Wood-bury: Llewellyn. ISBN 978-0-7387-2288-7.

Howard, Michael (2011). Childrenof Cain: A Study of Modern Tra-ditional Witches. Richmond Vista:Three Hands Press.

Howard, Michael (2014). “Edito-rial Note”. The Cauldron 152. p.22. ISSN 0964-5594.

Howard, Michael (2014b). “Edito-rial Note”. The Cauldron 154. p.46. ISSN 0964-5594.

Hutton, Ronald (1999). The Tri-umph of the Moon: A History ofModern Pagan Witchcraft. NewYork: Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-285449-0.

Hutton, Ronald (2014). “Responseto Pickingill Article”. The Caul-dron 153. p. 6. ISSN 0964-5594.

Kelly, Aidan A. (1991). Craftingthe Art of Magic – Book I: A Historyof Modern Witchcraft, 1939–1964.St. Paul: Llewellyn. ISBN 978-0-87542-370-8.

Kelly, Aidan A. (2007). InventingWitchcraft: A Case Study in the Cre-ation of a New Religion. Loughbor-ough, Leicestershire: Thoth Publi-cations. ISBN 978-1-870450-58-4.

Lefebvre, Charles (1970). Witnessto Witchcraft. New York: Ace.

Liddell, W.E.; Howard, Michael(1994). The Pickingill Papers: TheOrigin of the Gardnerian Craft.Chieveley, Berkshire: Capall Bann.ISBN 978-1-898307-10-5.

Maple, Eric (December 1960).“TheWitches of Canewdon”. Folk-lore 71 (4) (London: The FolkloreSociety). pp. 241–250. JSTOR1258113.

Maple, Eric (1965) [1962]. TheDark World of Witches. London:Pan Books.

Phillips, Julia (2004). “History ofWicca in England: 1939 to thePresent Day”. Geraldgardner.com.Archived from the original (PDF)on 31 March 2015.

Tapsell, Jonathan (2013). Ameth:The Life and Times of Doreen Va-liente. London: Avalonia. ISBN978-1-905297-70-2.

Valiente, Doreen (1978).Witchcraft for Tomorrow. London:Robert Hale.

Valiente, Doreen (1989). TheRebirth of Witchcraft. London:Robert Hale. ISBN 978-0-7090-3715-6.

Wallworth, William (2012).“George Pickingill (1816–1909)".Deadfamilies.com. Archived fromthe original on 13 September 2014.

Ward, Richard (2014a). “Last ofthe Essex Cunning Men”. TheCauldron 152. pp. 17–22. ISSN0964-5594.

Ward, Richard (2014b). “A Re-sponse to Professor Ronald Hut-ton”. The Cauldron 154. p. 46.ISSN 0964-5594.

11

4 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

4.1 Text• George Pickingill Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Pickingill?oldid=687233201 Contributors: Graeme Bartlett, D6, Ben-der235, Rjwilmsi, Pigman, Ohconfucius, Mr Stephen, Midnightblueowl, J Milburn, ShelfSkewed, Cydebot, Mike Christie, Nick Number,Dawnseeker2000, Robina Fox, Pedro, Waacstats, Belovedfreak, Aciram, Twendai, Jeremytrewindixon, ClueBot, P. S. Burton, Dthom-sen8, Dubmill, Tudorrosephotography, Leszek Jańczuk, Legobot, Yobot, AnomieBOT, Ulric1313, Citation bot, LilHelpa, DefaultsortBot,Tom.Reding, Trappist the monk, RjwilmsiBot, Helpful Pixie Bot, Tzaratron, DavidLeighEllis, Ugog Nizdast, Stamptrader and Anonymous:10

4.2 Images• File:Aleister_Crowley,_wickedest_man_in_the_world.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Aleister_Crowley.jpg License: ? Contributors:Originally published in The Equinox volume 1, issue 10 (1913) (see deletion discussion). This version taken from “Book 4, Part 2” byuploader Commons user Dnaspark99. Originally uploaded at Commons as Commons:File:Aleister Crowley, wickedestman in the world.jpg,but now deleted. Original artist:Unknown

• File:Canewdon_essex_1.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Canewdon_essex_1.jpg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Terryjoyce

• File:George_Pickingill,_Cunning_Man.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/71/George_Pickingill%2C_Cunning_Man.jpg License: Fair use Contributors: This image has come to be widely published in both various books and online. It can befound on page 38 of E.W. Liddell and Michael Howard’s The Pickingill Papers (Capall Bann, 1994). Original artist: Unknown

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