Tuesday, July 15, 2025

True Life Tuesday: Princess Caraboo

I often say that these stories would make a great movie. In this case a movie was made about this story altough the reviews were mixed.

Mary Willcoks was born around November 11, 1792 in Witheridge, Devonshire, England. Her parents were Thomas and Mary nee Burgess Willcocks. On April 3, 1817 she was found by a cobbler in Almonsbury, Gloucestershire. She appeared to be disoriented, wearing exotic clothes and was speaking an incomprehensible language.  She was taken to the local magistrate, Samuel Worrall. Samuel and his wife, Elizabeth, could not understand her but were able to determine that she was calling herself Caraboo. Worrall decided that she was a beggar and that she should be taken to Bristol to be tried for vagrancy. While imprisoned a Portugese sailor, Manuel Eynesso, said that he spoke her language. He said that she was Princess Caraboo from the island of Javasu in the Indian Ocean. She said that she was captured by pirates and eventually she jumped overboard in the bristol Channel and swam to shore. The Worralls ended up taking her back into her home. She became a favorite of the local dignitaries for the 10 weeks she stayed with the Worralls. Her story was also published in many newspapers making her a national sensation.

Her story fell apart when a boarding house keeper names Mrs. Neale recognized her picture in the Bristol Journal. He informed the Worralls that she was really a cobbler's daughter. She had worked as a servant but had recently been unable to find work or a place to stay. Elizabeth Worrall took pity on her and provided her with passage to Philadelphia. She left for America on June 28, 1817. Her last contact with the Worralls was a letter dated November 1817 in which she complained about her notorierty. However, while in the US she did appear on stage at Washington Hall in Philadelphia as Princess Caraboo. In 1824 she returned to England where again unsuccessfully appeared as Princess Caraboo in New Bond Street. 

In September 1828 she was living as a widow named Mary Burgess (which was actually her cousin's name) in Bedminster, Somerset. That year she married Richard Baker and had a daighter named Mary Ann in 1829. She died from a fall on December 24, 1864. She was buried in Hebron Road Cemetery in Bristol. Her story was memorialized in several books and also a musical. It was also turned into the movie Princess Caraboo starring Pheobe Cates in 1994. 


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