Daily Mail (London) - May 14th, 1903.
"PLANCHETTE JUDGMENT"
MR. CAVENDISH WINS CONTROL OF HIS FORTUNE.
Mr. Justice Byrne delivered judgment yesterday in the suit of Cavendish v. Strutt, which, during a hearing in the Chancery Court lasting nearly a month, was popularly known as the "planchette" case. His lordship decided in favour of the plaintiff, which means that Mr. Cavendish is to re-enter into control of what remains of his fortune, said to be about £30,000.
It will be remembered that Mr. Cavendish, on attaining his majority, came into a fortune of about a quarter of a million sterling. When much of it had been expended he met Major and Mrs. Strutt, with whom he boarded, paying £10 a week. Major Strutt became his man of business, and later Mr. Cavendish entered into a settlement which practically handed over to the major and Dr. W. Banger the control of his fortune. The action was brought to upset this settlement.
In a judgment which took over an hour and a half to read the Judge said that Mr. Cavendish had great natural ability, but was indolent, improvident, self-indulgent, and easily led. He was too idle to concentrate his attention upon business unless he was forced to apply himself to it. Major Strutt, continued his lordship, was very much older than the plaintiff, and in every sense a man of the world. It was not suggested that he had acted merely out of friendship or benevolence. If it had been so stated, he would not have believed it, for he had no doubt that the major hoped to reap a benefit. Mr. Cavendish might have understood in a general Way what was being done, but he had not had independent, disinterested advice.
As to the "planchette," his lordship said that he did not consider it part of his duty to pronounce whether these spiritualistic phenomena were true or not. The settlement was, therefore, set aside, the question of costs being held over until to-day.
In April 1902, Isobel Jay, leading soprano with the Savoy company, married twenty-five year-old Henry S. H. Cavendish, the reknowned African explorer and big game hunter. Cavendish was the eldest son of a great grandson of the second Baron Waterpark and, both parents being deceased, had inherited large estates in Buckinghamshire and Staffordshire. His personal estate was worth well in excess of half a million pounds, a tremendous sum in those days and enough, seemingly, to provide for a secure future for himself and the bride of his choice. By the time he married Miss Jay, however, it was in effect all gone, a large part of it squandered on his adventurings, failed theatrical investments and gifts to pretty actresses, and the remainder signed away in somewhat bizarre circumstances.
It had all begun two years previously, when Cavendish had met and been befriended by Major Charles Henry Strutt, a retired Indian army officer. Strutt became something of a father figure to Cavendish, and he confided in him his hopes to marry Miss Jay, to whom he subsequently became engaged. Later, when Cavendish fell ill with neuritis, he asked Major Strutt to look after his correspondence for him, and shortly thereafter they took a house together at Buckingham Gate. Later they joined Strutt's wife at Maidenhead - Cavendish becoming a paying guest of the Strutt's, contributing around 40 pounds per week towards the cost of living.
It seems to have been at this point that the Strutt's began to take advantage of him, with Mrs Strutt being the chief instrument of their deceit. Mrs. Strutt purported to be a medium, and introduced Cavendish first to seances then to a spiritualist device called a planchette, which henceforth would become very much a part of his daily life, and upon which he became increasingly dependent for advice.
The planchette is a thin piece of wood, about the size of a dinner plate cut into the shape of a heart, and supported by castors which allow it to move freely. The participants in a seance each place their hands upon the planchette, supposedly to conduct psychic energy by which it moves. As it does so, it leaves a track on a sheet of paper upon which it rests by means of a pencil passed through a hole in the apex. In this way letters may be scrawled on the paper conducting messages from the spirit world. The device, with a little practice, can also be easily influenced by a faker.
Over a period of time many spiritual messages were conveyed to Cavendish by means of this device. The first of these purported to say that his mother had been trying very hard to get in touch with him, and thanked Mrs. Strutt for providing the means. They also said that she would continue to advise him in all things business or otherwise, and that nothing must be done without consulting Major and Mrs Strutt in every way. They also induced him to dismiss his confidential valet, a man named Baker who was devoted to him and whom the Strutt's from the beginning had been anxious to get rid of. Strutt wrote the letter of dismissal, and Cavendish signed it because the spirit messages told him to do so. It read: "... With regard to my dismissing you, my affairs are in an embarrassed condition and I cannot afford to keep a valet. I must therefore give you a week's notice, as it would be unfair to keep you about without paying your wages." Cavendish final instruction to Baker was to hand over "all the plate etc." which he had placed in safekeeping into the hands of Mrs. Strutt.
The messages came at all times of the day, sometimes interrupting meals, whenever Mrs. Strutt 'perceived' a message coming through 'from the other side'. Cavendish, by his own subsequent admission, was totally taken in, and believed absolutely that the messages came from his mother. Eventually, Cavendish was so much under her control that Mrs. Strutt felt able to dispense with the planchette, and simply write the 'messages' by hand with a pencil alone. Frequently, Mrs. Strutt would call Cavendish to see her in her bedroom, where she would tell him she had received a message whilst in bed and would relate it too him whilst tracing her finger across a copy of the bible. The Strutt's were also constantly plying him with whisky and soda to keep him sedate and compliant.
Cavendish was advised by the Strutt's to change his firm of lawyers from Taylor and Taylor to A.W. Ranger of Fenchurch Street - so he consulted with his mother as to whether he could trust him. "Certainly," was the reply, "he is a servant of the Lord." Cavendish continued to consult his mother, through Mrs. Strutt, in all business matters, and the advice she gave always coincided with that given by Mr. Strutt and Mr. Ranger. Mrs. Strutt also conveyed messages of prayers and poetry from the Archangels Michael and Gabriel - but such was the extent to which she had Cavendish in her thrall that not even this unecessary over-elaboration would cause him to question her veracity. Sometimes an accomplice of the Strutt's, a Miss Knollys, would receive the messages, drawing 'spirit pictures' with only the aid of a pencil. Even the Strutt's two young sons would occasionally operate the planchette device, and although Cavendish later said that "the boys used to write mostly about fairies and things," still he did not question it's veracity.
Some of the messages concerned Miss Jay. Frequently they accused her of being a bad woman who was not to be trusted, and often they referred to an expensive diamond necklace and spray Cavendish had gifted to her - suggesting that Cavendish should demand their return so that Major Strutt could sell them "for the good of the Lord." Alone of all the advice they gave him, however, that pertaining to Miss Jay he did not take. Unfortunately for Cavendish, even that issue was soon to be taken out of his hands when Miss Jay herself broke off their engagement - perhaps because of his bizarre behaviour and the extent to which the Strutt's controlled him. Cavendish was deeply upset by this turn of events, and was easily influenced to accept the command of an Abyssinian expedition which had been offered him - in the hope that his absence would give Miss Jay time to think it over so that a reconciliation might then be effected. In his absence of course, his business affairs must be managed, and it was then that Cavendish was induced into a voluntary agreement by which he surrendered all control of his estate to Major Strutt and Mr. Ranger. Cavendish signed a power of attorney for Major Strutt to take control of his assets and act for him in all financial matters. The deed that Cavendish rather foolishly signed was an extraordinary one. It assigned to Major Strutt and Mr. Ranger practically the whole of his real and personal property as trustees, to be administered for the the benefit of Cavendish, his wife (if any), his brother and wife, and finally Mrs. Strutt and her three children.
The only thing that mattered to Cavendish at this time was his relationship with Miss Jay and he did in fact reconcile with her and become re-engaged even before his departure to Abyssinia. At this time he showed Miss Jay and her mother a black book in which the Strutt's had written down many of the spirit messages they had passed on to him. He showed it to Miss Jay very seriously, as something that had made a deep impression on him, but some of the entries made her angry and she did her best to convince him that the Strutt's were charlatans and taking advantage of him. Cavendish then went off on his expedition to Abyssinia and while he was away and out of the Strutt's control he finally came to his senses. Immediately upon his return, in January 1902, he repudiated the settlement which subsequently became the subject of a sensational court case. Free of the Strutt's control, he also reconciled with Miss Jay whom he married three months later.
The legal action to regain control of his estate lasted a further year, being finally settled in the court of Chancery in London on May 13th, 1903. Having heard evidence of seances, planchette writings, table writings and other extraordinary events, the judge expressed amazement at Cavendish's behaviour but held that he had not been fairly advised as to the full meaning of the settlement he had signed and accordingly set it aside - thus restoring to Cavendish full control of what was left of his finances.
A curious side effect of the case, according to the Messrs. Jacques, principal manufacturers of planchettes, was that the demand for their product rose to an extraordinary extent during the course of the proceedings, with orders coming in from Ireland and France as well.
Primary Sources: Fitchburg Daily Sentinel, 28th March, 1903; London Daily Mail (various editions).
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