Princess Caraboo
A young woman speaking an unknown language turned up in an English village and was welcomed as a princess from a faraway island.
What was reported
On 3 April 1817, a young woman in unusual dress appeared in the village of Almondsbury, near Bristol, speaking a language no one understood. Elizabeth Worrall, the wife of the local magistrate, took her in. A visiting sailor claimed to understand her and said she was Princess Caraboo of Javasu, an island in the Indian Ocean, carried off by pirates.
For ten weeks she lived as a celebrity, fencing, swimming and praying to a god she called Allah Tallah, while curious visitors came to see her.
Explanations offered
A Bristol lodging-house keeper recognised her from a newspaper portrait. She was Mary Willcocks, a cobbler's daughter from Devon, who had invented the language and the story. Mrs Worrall paid for her passage to America; she later returned to England and settled in Bristol.
- When
- 3 April 1817
- Where
- Almondsbury, Gloucestershire, England
- Witnesses
- Villagers and the Worrall household
- Status
- Hoax
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.