Mary Baker

Biography

On 3 April 1817, a cobbler in Almondsbury in Gloucestershire, England, met an apparently disoriented young woman wearing exotic clothes who was speaking an incomprehensible language. The cobbler's wife took this stranger to the Overseer of the Poor, who placed her in the hands of the local county magistrate, Samuel Worrall, who lived in Knole Park on the estate where Tower House is located. Worrall and his American-born wife Elizabeth could not understand her either; what they did determine was that she called herself Caraboo and that she was interested in Chinese imagery. They sent her to the local inn, where she identified a drawing of a pineapple with the word , meaning pineapple in Indonesian languages, and insisted on sleeping on the floor. Worrall declared she was a beggar and should be taken to Bristol and tried for vagrancy. She used a bow and arrow, fenced, swam naked and prayed to a god, whom she named Allah-Talla (a spelling variation of , "Allah the Exalted", one of the formal names for God in Islam). She acquired exotic clothing and her portrait was painted and reproduced in local newspapers. Her authenticity was attested to by a Dr Wilkinson, who identified her language using Edmund Fry's Pantographia (an encyclopedia of known alphabets and scripts) and stated that marks on the back of her head were the work of oriental surgeons. Newspapers published stories about Princess Caraboo's adventures bringing her national acclaim.

Eventually the truth surfaced. A boarding-house keeper, Mrs Neale, recognised her from the picture in the Bristol Journal and informed her hosts. This would-be princess was in truth Mary Willcocks, a cobbler's daughter from Witheridge, Devon. She had been a servant girl around England but had found no place to stay. She invented her fictitious language from imaginary and Romani words and created an exotic character and story. The odd marks on her head were scars from a crude cupping operation in a poorhouse hospital in London.

In the United States, she briefly continued her role, appearing on-stage at the Washington Hall, Philadelphia, as Princess Caraboo, with little success. In 1839, she was selling leeches to the Bristol Infirmary Hospital. She died from a fall on 24 December 1864 and was buried in the Hebron Road cemetery in Bristol.

In popular culture Film A biopic, Princess Caraboo, written by Michael Austin and John Wells and starring Phoebe Cates, was released to mixed reviews in 1994. It added fictional elements to the story.

Literature The Curious Tale of Princess Caraboo, a historical novel by Catherin Johnson, was published in 2015.

Theatre Several stage musical adaptations have been attempted based on the story. These include a 2004 workshop starring Laura Benanti entitled Caraboo. Princess Caraboo, a full stage musical, opened on 30 March 2016 at London's Finborough Theatre, with a book and lyrics written by Phil Willmott and composed by Mark Collins. The limited-run production opened to positive reviews and was nominated for the 2016 Offies for Best New Musical and Best Lighting Design.

Comics Princess Caraboo was a 2016 French language bande dessinée by Antoine Ozanam and Julia Bax.