Cecil Williamson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 19 September 1909 |
| Died | 9 December 1999(1999-12-09) (aged 90) |
| Occupations | MI6 Operative; Witch |
| Spouse | Gwen Wilcox |
Cecil Williamson (18 September 1909 – 9 December 1999) was a British screenwriter, editor and film director and influential EnglishNeopaganWarlock. He was the founder of both the Witchcraft Research Center which was a part ofMI6's war againstNazi Germany,[citation needed] and theMuseum of Witchcraft. He was a friend of bothGerald Gardner, who was the founder ofWicca, and also of the notorious occultistAleister Crowley.
Williamson was born inPaignton,Devon, England.[1] His father was a senior officer in theRoyal Navy and was posted abroad.[1] He claimed he first encountered witchcraft in 1916, when, on a visit toNorth Bovey, also in Devon, to visit his uncle, a localvicar, he supposedly saw a woman being publicly beaten and accused of being a witch. Williamson claimed he tried to defend the woman, and in doing so befriended her.[1]
In 1921, whilst at the boarding schoolMalvern College, Williamson was bullied, but he claimed got help from a woman who lived on the school grounds, who was also a witch. She showed him how to cast a spell on the bully, who soon after broke his leg in a skiing accident and stopped bullying Cecil.
During Summer holidays, Williamson often went to visitDinard in France with his grandmother and her friend Mona Mackenzie. Mackenzie was aspirit medium, and she taught Williamson aboutdivination.
After studying in college, Williamson travelled toRhodesia (modernZimbabwe) to growtobacco, where his servant, Zandonda, taught him aboutAfrican magic.
In 1930, Williamson returned to Britain and moved to London, where he began working as a production assistant at several film studios. As a hobby, he continued to investigate theoccult, beginning to collect objects and became an acquaintance ofMargaret Murray,Montague Summers andAleister Crowley.
In 1933, he married Gwen Wilcox, a make-up artist, and niece of film directorHerbert Wilcox.
In 1938,MI6 hired Williamson to investigate theNazis'occult interests, and in doing so he formed the Witchcraft Research Center.[citation needed] An April 1944 news report, while not mentioning the Witchcraft Research Center nor Williamson, reflects their area of expertise in claiming Goebbels was going to 'harness fortune telling, astrology, and necromancy to his propaganda machine'.[2]
In 1946, Williamson metGerald Gardner in theAtlantis Bookshop in London at a talk which Gardner was giving. The two became friends largely due to their mutual interest in the theory of thepaganwitch cult.
In 1947, Williamson tried to open a museum about witchcraft inStratford-on-Avon, but was forced to change his plans after local opposition. In 1948, Williamson bought a dilapidated windmill atCastletown on theIsle of Man. He turned it into theFolklore Center of Superstition and Witchcraft, and opened it in 1949, along with an adjacent restaurant, the Witches' Kitchen.
Williamson employed Gardner to be the 'resident witch' at the museum, which had been renamed theMuseum of Magic and Witchcraft after the repeal of theWitchcraft Act 1735 in 1951. However, Williamson and Gardner's relationship began to fall apart, and Williamson wanted to return to England. So in 1952 he sold the museum to Gardner, and moved all his artefacts to a new site, inWindsor, renaming it theMuseum of Witchcraft. Gardner, using his own artefact collection, continued to run the museum on the Isle of Man for the rest of his life.
At Windsor, Williamson's museum remained open for a year, and was quite successful, but was again forced out due to local opposition. In 1954 he therefore moved the museum toBourton-on-the-Water inGloucestershire. Here, the museum was damaged in an arson attack, and so, in 1960, Williamson moved the museum toBoscastle inCornwall, where it remains to this day.
At midnight on 31 October 1996, Williamson sold the museum to Graham King. Williamson retained some of his artefacts (but none that were on display in the museum) at his home in [Witheridge], a small village near toTiverton inDevon. After his death in 1999 much of his private collection was acquired by the museum.
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