It was in the séance notes compiled by Sidney Glanville in his Locked Book on the Borley hauntings, some of which were incorporated by Harry Price in his two books of 1940 and 1946, that there appeared details which seemed to point to a sad and disturbing episode in the Bull family's life.
It was these details that the critics attacked, claiming that they were heavily edited, but Price had a very straightforward reason for editing the results. Relatives of the Bull family were then still alive and could therefore have been upset by some of the revelations. In consequence Harry Price felt he could not really take any other course, and some of the very personal details, such as certain names, had to be omitted from the draft, later incorporated into The Most Haunted House in England and The End of Borley Rectory.
The Bull family's troubles centred on the results of table tipping experiments and critics have seized on the whole episode as proof of Price's fabrication of much of the Borley story. According to the results of these experiments, a device which Price himself regarded with some doubt as to its acceptability without other evidence, a fact often ignored by his would-be critics, there had been a maid in the service of the Bull family at Borley Rectory, a girl who according to the séance was Katie Boreham.
The séance reveals that, following an affair, possibly with one of the Bull men folk, though they were not named as such in the published extracts, the girl became pregnant. In giving birth she died, according to local belief recorded by Glanville, in the arms of Harry Bull in the Rectory kitchen. Surrounding this alleged episode was also a suggestion that not only was the incident hushed up, which of course is what often happened in such cases, but that the unfortunate girl was helped into the next world by a dose of poison administered either by the Rector or his wife.
The date as recorded in the séance was Easter 1888, and following the results of the session, the Parish records of Borley were checked and therein was discovered a record of the death of a Kate Boreham, of Sudbury on Easter Day, 1888.
In the years following Harry Price's death, a number of critics have claimed that no such events ever took place at Borley Rectory. We do know that a similar suggestion that Harry Bull died by poisoning has not been proved, and that he is always recorded as having died from cancer.
Some people thought that Harry Bull was involved in the birth of an illegitimate child at Borley, and that the affair was hushed up. To begin with there is a practical problem with the supposed date of either Katie or Kate Boreham's death in 1888.
Concerning Harry Bull's possible involvement in the episode, we must note that he was away from Borley Rectory from 1886 to 1889, during which time he was a curate at Westoe in County Durham. But he could have been involved if he had come home to visit his family at the Rectory during the holidays.
If we suppose that one of the Bull family servants did become pregnant, the conception of the child would have been in June or July 1887. Westoe St Thomas Baptismal Records, now in Durham Record Office, show that Harry Bull was at Westoe on June 6, 1887, but he could have been home between then and September 9, 1887.
We also need to know whether the Bull family suffered a loss among its staff at the time alleged, be it a Katie or whoever, and if so, from what cause.
There was indeed a Kate Boreham who died in March 1888. The Kate Boreham who appears in the Death Registers of St Catherine's House died in Sudbury, not at Borley, from acute cerebritis and at the same time as the alleged death of Katie Boreham of the Borley Rectory séances.
That at least is what the death certificate says. However, given the social position of the Bull family in the community, and the disastrous consequences of any scandal becoming public, can we be sure that what appears on that death certificate is the truth?
It is entirely possible that the Bull family could have been faced with some serious scandal concerning a member of the family and a maid at the Rectory. An episode that was potentially so damaging to their reputation that they used their position to procure the complicity of a physician in covering up the matter by misreporting the cause of death and the place, or plainly falsifying the death certificate!
One possibility, and an associated clue, lies in Glanville's Locked Book. While he was at Borley in 1937, Glanville was visited by Harry Bull's brother, Walter Bull, who reported the footsteps phenomenon. He also mentioned that of various physicians who visited the Rectory during his father's time, one in particular, Doctor Alexander, said that he would never enter the place again!
Sidney Glanville's locked book of information on Borley, now in the United States.
If that is true, was the good doctor referring to the hauntings and strange happenings in the house or was he referring to some matter concerning the family themselves? Was this doctor called to attend the birth of a child or the death of one of the servants? If so, in saying he would never enter the house again, was he implying that, had he been asked, he would not serve the Bull family further? The death certificate of Kate Boreham of Sudbury shows not a Doctor Alexander but a certain W. Nigel Mason to have been the attending physician at her death, so it seems that the man mentioned by Walter Bull was not involved in the Katie episode.
This does not mean that he was not involved in the medical aspects of another of the Bull household, and we will look later at the events relating to the death of Harry Bull's father, Henry Dawson Bull.
There is another possibility concerning Kate. It is possible that Kate Boreham of Sudbury might have been employed at Borley Rectory and simply have become seriously ill while in the Bull's service, and been taken back to her own home in Sudbury where she died - a perfectly innocent chain of events, with no scandalous connotations. If that is what happened, why should she appear in the burial registers of Borley and not in one of Sudbury's churches?
Could the Bull family have provided money for a grave at Borley for Kate because her own family could not afford to pay for her funeral, or was it that Kate Boreham did in fact become involved in some misfortune within the Bull household, to the extent that they found it expedient to 'manage' the final rites themselves?
It should not be forgotten that there was at least one Katie employed as a maid at the Rectory. She was not, however, one of the Bull's servants but was employed by Lionel and Marianne Foyster, so she belonged to the 1930s and not to 1888. She seems to have been mentioned only once by Price in his account of that period in the Rectory's history, and there is no hint at all that anything untoward happened to her, apart from her being present during the exploding bottle incidents, which resultant mess she was obliged several times to clear up on the evening in question!
In an attempt to make some sense of the Katie Boreham episode, let me turn my attention to the other end of this business, Priory Walk in Sudbury, where the death certificate says Kate Boreham died in 1888.
The Suffolk County Records Office at Bury St Edmunds was consulted and the results are somewhat curious. Kate's husband, Walter Boreham, who we know from Borley census records was a farm labourer, would almost certainly not have owned the house in Priory Walk, for his wages would not have permitted home ownership.
The odd thing is that in the electoral register for 1888 the only person owning a house in Priory Walk, Sudbury, was a Jessie Mitchell. According to the Suffolk Records Office, there was one person of the name Bull on the electoral register listed as owning a house in Sudbury, and he was William Henry Bull. Suffolk Records did not state whether he was related to the Bulls of Borley or Pentlow, but as the Bull family owned so much property in the Sudbury area, it is not unlikely that W. H. Bull was of the same family, especially as his second name is Henry! He is recorded as owning the freehold of a house in Market Hill, Sudbury.
Another odd thing that these enquiries revealed was that, at least in 1881, there was no such person as Walter or Kate Boreham residing in Priory Walk, Sudbury. However, the seven years that elapsed up to 1888 were more than enough for that situation to have changed.
If the Katie episode was indeed a cover-up, how convenient for those involved that the census returns fell due in 1881 when Kate was alive and next in 1891 when she had been dead for three years.
There remains the query as to why if Kate died in Sudbury she was brought back to Borley to be buried, which is not where she was born, especially as a levy would have been charged for each parish through which her body was conveyed. Is that death certificate a pack of lies? If so, those who perpetrated the falsehood must surely have seen the incompleteness of their scheme in recording Kate Boreham's burial at Borley in the parish registers, which if a scandal was being covered up, would surely have been omitted from the registers; that is, unless Kate Boreham, in spite of what the register says, was never buried at Borley at all!
Richard Lee van den Daele, who contributed much information about the late Captain Gregson, visited Borley and mentioned that he could not find Kate's grave in Borley churchyard. In that light, the whole episode becomes, like Alice in Wonderland, curiouser and curiouser!
Was Kate Boreham visiting somebody in Priory Way when she was perhaps taken ill? And who was Jessie Mitchell and was she anything to do with either the Bulls or the Borehams?
Let us turn our attention now to Kate Boreham's recorded cause of death, acute cerebritis. This is listed as inflammation of the brain and encompasses the condition better known as meningitis.
What can be gleaned from the death of a woman of Kate Boreham's age, 31 years, from this illness, taking into account the living conditions and medical knowledge of the 1880s?
The writer turned again to Professor Bernard Knight, who had already given much interesting information on the validity of the bone finds at Borley, and asked for answers to the following questions:
The details of Kate's known children's births were given, and also the Professor was informed of the allegation about the finding in one of the Rectory cupboards of a half-empty bottle of sugar of lead.
The writer was not expecting any great success with this line of enquiry, but the results were better than could have been foreseen and very suggestive as to the true fate of Kate Boreham!
The basics of Professor Knight's views were as follows:
The reader will see immediately in these comments the almost unlimited field for concealing a true cause of death in a case where that death was probably not natural.
From professional opinions given, it is of course not possible to prove that Kate Boreham met an unnatural end, but one's suspicions are obviously strongly increased by what Professor Knight has outlined.
Sugar of lead turns out to be an old expression for lead acetate, one of the few lead compounds that is soluble, but the most extraordinary point about it in terms of the Katie story is that it was, in former times, used in diachylon plasters which could be scraped and swallowed to induce an abortion.
One can immediately see the possible course of events that might have surrounded Kate Boreham's last days. It is difficult to ignore the very real possibility that the 'village gossip' stories about a maid's death, and the fathering of illegitimate children by Henry Dawson Bull, have actually been based on fact.
However, another anomaly arises of the matter of Kate's age. The church register gives her age at death as 31, which makes her 19 at the time of her marriage. This tallies with the marriage register, yet her death certificate gives her age at death as 38! It is not impossible for the church register to be incorrect and it is equally possible for the death certificate to be inaccurate.
This also shows Walter Boreham being present at his wife's death, and what purports to be his mark, but we know from Suffolk records that there is no evidence that the house in Sudbury where she is said to have died ever belonged to, or was rented by, the Borehams. As the cause of death has been shown to be questionable, it seems not at all unlikely that the age entry and Walter Boreham's mark could also be spurious or false.
The following circumstances could be one answer to the stories surrounding the role of Katie Boreham in the hauntings.
Consider some of the elements of the story, in particular the coach and horses and the voice that Guy Smith heard pleading, 'No Carlos. Don't!'
Consider also the allegations about the half-empty bottle of sugar of lead, and the long-standing local belief that Henry Dawson Bull had relationships with village girls and is said to have fathered three illegitimate children.
It is apparent that the long-believed connection between the nun and the horse-drawn carriage is not really tenable. There is some possibility that it could have been connected with events surrounding the Waldegraves in France at the time of the French Revolution, though even that doesn't really address the presence of the carriage in the Borley hauntings. But when one recalls the description of the vehicle as resembling an old-fashioned cab, then the possibility as to its true place in the saga becomes apparent.
Let us assume that Kate Boreham was a maid to the Bull family at Borley Rectory and let us further assume that she did become pregnant during 1887/88 and that the child was not by her husband.
She went into labour whilst going about her duties in the Rectory, and very possibly prematurely, perhaps while she was at work in the Rectory kitchen. She was taken up and placed in one of the bedrooms, where after a difficult delivery the infant was found to be dead or died very shortly after, and Kate herself was now in a very weak state.
Now the Bulls had a disaster on their hands. Henry's exploits had caught up with him under the worst possible circumstances! What was to be done? If the regular doctor to the family is called, unless he was well in with the family, the game would be up, and the family would suffer a monumental scandal!
The dead child was disposed of and either because of that or because Katie was now the object of a hastily arranged scheme to get her out of the way before the lid blew off, Katie herself or maybe even Henry's wife protested, 'No Carlos. Don't!', obviously to no avail.
The existence of the house in Sudbury was known about. Maybe the William Henry Bull referred to in the Suffolk records was connected with the Borley family and was involved. The Bull's carriage was summoned and a dying Kate placed in it.
The coach was now driven away from the Rectory at considerable speed, perhaps after dark, conveying its hapless passenger to the secluded house in Priory Walk. She was taken inside and shortly afterwards died. Then, a doctor was found to issue a suitable death certificate, perhaps a young doctor who was somewhat inexperienced, and 'cerebritis' was entered as a cause of death.
If Katie was given something that was supposed to be a sedative at the Rectory, but which was laced with sugar of lead, then the end would be conveniently hastened, and the stated cause of death in the case of a servant girl would be unlikely to attract any interest from local outsiders.
Now one of two things could happen. The first possibility was that Kate would be quietly buried in an unmarked grave in Sudbury, with nobody else, including Walter Boreham, any the wiser. He could even have been under the impression that his wife was confined to bed in the Rectory with some illness. In the mean time a fake entry was made in the parish registers by Henry Bull.
The second and safer option for the Bulls was that Kate was simply reported as having died while visiting someone in Sudbury, and her body was then brought back to Borley at the Bulls' expense and buried in an unmarked grave in a seemingly commonplace service conducted by Henry Bull.
They had achieved their aim of completely covering up a scandal, or so they thought, and for the time being, that was the end of the matter, which was henceforth merely the Bull family's 'misfortune'.
That is how it remained, until years later, when a quiet Eurasian cleric was startled by a voice pleading, 'No Carlos. Don't!' ... and Borley Rectory's grisly secret began to leak out, the beginnings of Katie Boreham's spirit's struggle to have the truth revealed.
The one thing that this suggested course of events does not allow for is the discovery in 1943 of the skull fragments in the ruins of the Rectory. The reader will be aware of the question as to whether or not the bones were those of the nun, or a plague victim, which is mentioned in the chapter about the séances, or whether they were the remains of Kate Boreham.
Kate Boreham could not have been buried in two places at once, so if the skull fragments were those of Kate, then it was not she who was buried at the service on Easter Day, 1888. If that is the case, then what did happen at that time?
The one obvious possibility is that Kate actually died in the Rectory and never left the house again. This means that her death was totally concealed and that no one actually died at Priory Walk, or that another unknown person died there and was buried at Borley ostensibly as Kate Boreham.
If that is what occurred then one is faced with the possibility that Kate was disposed of beneath the Rectory cellar. The one major point that could support this proposition is the view of Dr David Whittaker, who reassessed the state of the teeth in the Borley skull from Dr Godden's report, and whose views are given in the chapter on the archaeology of Borley Rectory.
The relevant point is that the wear on the first and second molar teeth suggested an age close to 30. Kate Boreham was 31 when she died. One thing that would certainly answer the query as to why one of the wells appeared to have been partly filled and a false bottom put in would be the alleged disposal of the dead baby, which would mean that what has been village gossip for so long is finally revealed to be only too true!
It also means that the remains of the nun have not been found, and that the skull fragments buried at Liston are not hers either.
Now, however, in the light of Professor Knight's details, we have a second scenario: in this version of events, there would have been the same basic background, in that Kate is assumed to have been a maid at the Rectory and during that time was involved in an affair and became pregnant. But in this instance, in an attempt to abort the pregnancy, she was either given or took lead acetate in some form. Possibly this occurred too late, and the child was born dead and Katie herself developed encephalitis from the absorption of the lead.
Because of the potentially disastrous consequences for the Bull family, she was hurriedly taken away to the house in Sudbury, where she soon died and was written off as a victim of cerebritis.
There is one final factor in this episode that must be resolved before we can close the book on Kate Boreham. With the allegation dating back many years that Henry Bull had relationships with village girls, there is also a claim that Henry died from a sexually transmitted disease.
To discover the truth of this, I obtained a copy of Henry Bull's death certificate. At first glance, this death certificate gives no obvious clue to the layman that Henry Dawson Bull might have died as a result of some 'extra-curricular activities', because the stated cause of his death is given as 'Locomotor Ataxia', which affects the motor nerve and causes, among other things, failure of leg co-ordination when walking. A medical dictionary describes it as:
'A degenerative disease of the spinal cord; a manifestation of tertiary syphilis allied to general paralysis of the insane.'
It details the symptoms, such as failure of walking co-ordination, lack of reflexes, and so on. It is described as a progressive disease but today it is treatable, or at least controllable. In 1892, however, when Henry Dawson Bull died, it is unlikely that there would have been any treatment for this, but the most important item in terms of the stories about the Rector is the reference to tertiary syphilis!
The dictionary also gives the term 'tabes dorsalis' under the heading 'Locomotor Ataxia'. When we turn to the heading 'Syphilis' later in the dictionary, we find a cross-link, 'tabes dorsalis'.
Being aware of Professor Knight's comments about the accuracy of 19th-century causes of death, but assuming that the recorded cause of death was in this case correct, we now appear to have evidence that Henry Dawson Bull did indulge in affairs with other women, and paid the price when he was only 59 years old. Also we now have a sound basis for believing that Kate Boreham was one of Henry's 'affairs'.
Whether one could ever make a strong legal case of this is questionable, but in terms of the basis for the disturbances at Borley Rectory, it seems to me that the scenario involving Henry Bull, Katie Boreham, the dead child and the sugar of lead is only strengthened by what has been discovered from a professor of pathology and a modern medical dictionary.