Helen Duncan

Victoria Helen McCrae Duncan (25 November 1897 – 6 December 1956) was a Scottish medium best known as the last person to be imprisoned under the British Witchcraft Act of 1735. She was famous for producing fraudulent ectoplasm made from cheesecloth.

Early life

(Victoria) Helen MacFarlane was born in Callander, Perthshire on 25 November 1897, the daughter of a slater. At school, to the distress of her mother (a member of the Presbyterian church), she alarmed her fellow pupils with her dire prophecies and hysterical behaviour. In 1916 she married Henry Duncan, a cabinet maker and wounded war veteran, who was supportive of her supposed supernatural talents. In 1926 she developed from clairvoyant to medium by offering séances in which she claimed to summon the spirits of recently deceased persons by emitting ectoplasm from her mouth. A mother of six, she also worked part-time in a bleach factory.

Practising medium

In 1928 the photographer Harvey Metcalfe attended a series of séances at the house of Duncan. During a séance he took various flash photographs of Duncan and her alleged "materialization" spirits including her spirit guide "Peggy". The photographs that were taken reveal the "spirits" to be fraudulently produced, such as a doll made from a painted papier-mâché mask draped in an old sheet.

Helen Duncan (politician)

Helen Patricia Duncan MNZM (7 November 1941 – 6 February 2007) was a New Zealand politician and a member of the Labour Party.

Early years

Duncan was born in Greymouth on the West Coast, and attended Canterbury University, Auckland University, and Christchurch Teachers' College. She worked as a teacher in a number of different cities including Lower Hutt, Masterton and Auckland. She was involved with the New Zealand Educational Institute (Te Riu Roa) and the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions.

Member of Parliament

She first stood for Parliament in the 1996 election, unsuccessfully in the Auckland electorate of Epsom for the Labour Party.

In 1998 Jill White, a Labour list MP, resigned from Parliament. As Duncan was the next-ranked person on the Labour Party list, she entered Parliament in White's place.

In the 1999 and the 2002 elections, Duncan remained in Parliament as a list MP, also unsuccessfully contesting the North Shore electorate.

She left Parliament at the 2005 election after being diagnosed with cancer. She died on 6 February 2007.