We are all familiar with the traditional “bedsheet ghost,” but have you ever wondered where this image comes from? Why on Earth do we imagine ghosts wearing bedsheets? As strange as it sounds, the history of the Halloween bedsheet ghost is far darker and more mysterious than most people probably realize.
Ghosts in burial shrouds
Up until fairly recently, in most western European cultures, the bodies of deceased individuals were commonly buried wrapped in a piece of white cloth known as a “burial shroud” or “winding cloth.” The wealthy were usually wrapped in a shroud and placed in a coffin. Poor people, on the other hand, were often buried without a coffin, wearing only a shroud.
On account of the fact that so many people were buried wrapped in shrouds, it became common for people in England during the Early Modern Period (lasted c. 1450 – c. 1750) to report having seen apparitions wrapped in shrouds. In England during this period, thieves would often dress up in white sheets to impersonate spirits so they could frighten people and steal their money.
Ghost impersonation was apparently quite a common activity for criminals in England as early as the sixteenth century. The English witchcraft scholar Reginald Scott (lived c. 1538 – 1599) wrote in book seven, chapter 15 of his book The Discoverie of Witchcraft, which was published in 1584:
“But certainly, one knave in a white sheet hath cozened [i.e. “deceived”] and abused many thousands that way; specially when Robin Goodfellow kept such a coil in the country. But you shall understand, that these bugs specially are spied and feared by sick folk, children, women, and cowards, which through weakness of mind and body, are shaken with vain dreams and continual fear.”
Scott was, of course, referring to ghost impersonation. It therefore seems evident that, even in the time of Shakespeare, some people were already using white sheets to disguise themselves as ghosts.
Nonetheless, even though this was one image of a ghost that existed at the time, it was far from the most iconic one. In plays of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, ghosts were most often portrayed dressed in armor—not covered in shrouds. In the original production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it is highly probable that the ghost of Hamlet’s father would have been portrayed dressed in armor. This means we still have to answer the question of how the image of the shrouded ghost became the most iconic one.
ABOVE: Late seventeenth-century German painting of a little boy wearing a sheet over his face to frighten two little girls by making them think he is a ghost
The Hammersmith ghost and its white shroud
One of the most famous of all reported apparitions in England during the early nineteenth century was the so-called “Hammersmith ghost.” Starting in November 1803, various locals in the district of Hammersmith in the west part of the city of London, England began claiming that they had been attacked by the ghost of a man who had committed suicide and been buried in the Hammersmith churchyard the previous year.
Some of those who claimed to have seen the ghost described it as extraordinarily tall and wrapped in a white shroud. Other reports characterized the ghost as a fearsome figure resembling a man wearing a calf-skin dress, with horns on its head and eyes made of glass. No matter how it was described, however, the ghost was always characterized as a fearsome presence.
Fear of the supposed ghost gripped the whole city. London did not have an organized police force at the time, so ordinary people organized hunts to go look for the ghost. On 4 January 1804, brick-layer named Thomas Millwood, who was dressed in all white, was mistaken for the ghost by a twenty-nine-year-old excise officer named Francis Smith, who had gone out to look for the ghost. Thinking that he had come face-to-face with the most feared ghoul in all London, Smith shot Millwood and killed him.
This accidental shooting led to a trial that garnered much publicity. Because the fact that Smith had mistaken Millwood for the ghost on account of his white clothing was central to the trial, a great deal of attention was brought to the particular description of the ghost as being dressed in a white shroud. Thus, although there were other descriptions of the ghost that conflicted with this description, the description of the Hammersmith ghost as a tall figure wrapped in a white shroud quickly became the canonical one.
An iconic illustration published in the magazine Kirby’s Wonderful and Scientific Museum in 1804 depicts the Hammersmith ghost as a man dressed in a billowy white shroud, with its arms raised in the air above its head, floating just above the ground. The illustration portrays the ghost looking straight ahead, with a vacant expression on its face and its mouth gaping slightly. One can only imagine how disturbing it would be to encounter such an apparition in real life.
Ultimately, a Hammersmith shoemaker named John Graham admitted that he had started the whole story of the Hammersmith ghost as a hoax to scare people. In other words, the ghost whose stories had so terrorized the public and even resulted in a man’s wrongful death turned out to have been a hoax from the beginning. Nonetheless, the memory of the Hammersmith ghost lived on and, ironically, about two decades later, people began telling stories of how the vengeful spirit of Thomas Millwood supposedly haunted the area of Hammersmith where he had been shot and killed.
ABOVE: Illustration published in 1804 in Kirby’s Wonderful and Scientific Museum depicting the Hammersmith ghost dressed in a white shroud with its arms in the air, floating just off the ground
From shrouded specters to Halloween bedsheet ghosts
The notorious case of the Hammersmith ghost probably played a significant role in popularizing the belief that ghosts were often seen dressed in white funeral shrouds throughout the English-speaking world. The theatre seems to have played a significant role in popularizing this image as well. In English and American plays produced during the nineteenth century, ghosts were often portrayed dressed in billowy white shrouds, just like the Hammersmith ghost.
The final step in the transition from shrouds to bedsheets occurred with the advent of Halloween costumes and trick-or-treating in the United States in the early twentieth century. In those early days of Halloween, there were no fancy, pre-made, store-bought costumes, so children who wanted to dress up had to make their own costumes. Children who wanted to go as ghosts found that they could use white bedsheets to imitate the appearance of a shrouded, ghostly figure.
The problem arose, however, that, if they just threw a bedsheet over their heads, they couldn’t see where they were going, so children began to cut eye holes in their imitation “shrouds.” Eventually, after years of children wearing white bedsheets as Halloween costumes, people all forgot that the bedsheet was supposed to represent a burial shroud and they came to think of ghosts as wearing actual bedsheets.
Thus, the modern “bedsheet ghost” was born.
ABOVE: Illustration from 1904 depicting a shrouded ghost lunging at a man
