Dorothy Clutterbuck
Dorothy Clutterbuck was born on February 21, 1880, in Bengal, India, to Captain Thomas St. Quintin Clutterbuck and Ellen Anne Morgan. She grew up in an upper-middle-class environment, as her father achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel. In the early 1930s, Clutterbuck returned to Britain, settling in Highcliffe, where she married Rupert Fordham in the late 1930s. Much of her early life remains shrouded in mystery, with claims suggesting that she preferred a low-profile existence.
Clutterbuck is best known for her association with Gerald Gardner, who claimed she was the high priestess of the New Forest Coven and initiated him into its practices in 1939. During this initiation, Gardner introduced the term "Wicca," linking Clutterbuck to the preservation of ancient pagan traditions. She passed away in 1951, the same year that anti-witchcraft laws in Britain were repealed, potentially allowing her to clarify her role in the burgeoning Wiccan movement.
Skeptics have debated Gardner's assertions regarding Clutterbuck's significance, viewing her as a possibly fictional figure created to lend authenticity to modern witchcraft's historical claims. However, research by Doreen Valiente in the 1980s corroborated some details of Clutterbuck’s life, suggesting a tangible connection to Gardner and the rituals he described. Despite this, little additional information has emerged about Clutterbuck, leaving her legacy largely influenced by Gardner's narratives.
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Subject Terms
Dorothy Clutterbuck
British high priestess
- Born: January 19, 1880
- Birthplace: Bengal, India
- Died: January 12, 1951
- Place of death: Highcliffe, England
Cause of notoriety: Clutterbuck was a high priestess who is believed to have initiated the father of modern Wicca and paganism, Gerald Brosseau Gardner, into the New Forest Coven and provided him with a ritual and verbal history of witchcraft that connected it firmly to pre-Christian times. Some doubt her existence, claiming that Gardner invented her to serve his own purposes.
Active: 1930’s-1951
Locale: Highcliffe, England
Early Life
Dorothy Clutterbuck (KLUHT-tuhr-buhk) was born to Thomas St. Quintin Clutterbuck, a captain serving with the Fourteenth Sikhs Regiment, and Ellen Anne Morgan in Bengal, India, and was baptized in Paul Church, Umbala, on February 21, 1880. Clutterbuck’s father eventually attained the rank of lieutenant colonel, which at the time would have afforded Clutterbuck an upper-middle-class upbringing.
Clutterbuck eventually returned to Britain under unknown circumstances in 1933 to reside at Mill House, Lymington Road, Highcliffe, where, according to lists kept by the register of electors at the Christchurch Town Hall, she married Rupert Fordham sometime in 1937 or 1938. Very little else is known about Clutterbuck’s early life, a fact that Gerald Gardner attributed to her desire to remain anonymous until after her death.
Witchcraft Career
Although most of Clutterbuck’s life is a mystery that cannot be substantiated, Gardner claimed that Old Dorothy Clutterbuck was the high priestess who initiated him into the New Forest Coven in September, 1939. During this initiation, Gardner first heard the term “Wicca,” which has since come to refer to modern witchcraft. According to Gardner, at that time Clutterbuck was leading an authentic coven of witches in traditional pagan ritual and worship, the last remains of a tradition that could trace its lineage and rituals directly to pre-Christian times. Gardner claimed these rituals and practices to be authentically traditional although fragmented. He also maintained that between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe much magical knowledge and witchcraft lore were lost as a result of widespread executions of women presumed to be witches. During these times of persecution, Gardner claimed that several witches maintained and preserved this magical lore, passing it down from generation to generation. After Clutterbuck’s death at the age of seventy in 1951, Gardner identified her as the heir to and caretaker of one of these ancient lines of magical knowledge; however, since Clutterbuck had died, it was impossible to verify his claims. Ironically, the year that Clutterbuck died was when the repeal of antiwitchcraft legislation in Britain occurred, which, had Clutterbuck been alive, might have allowed her the freedom to confirm or deny without fear of criminal prosecution Gardner’s many claims regarding her role in shaping the path of modern-day witchcraft.
Impact
For many years, skeptics and opponents of paganism maintained that Clutterbuck was a convenient manifestation of Gardner’s active imagination and a useful tool to lend credibility to his claims that Wicca and paganism have legitimate, traceable roots and histories. If Gardner’s claims are true, his initiation provided him with invaluable access to and knowledge of one of the world’s oldest and most secretive religions. Doreen Valiente’s research in the early 1980’s into the life and death of Dorothy Clutterbuck established birth, death, marriage, and residential records for Clutterbuck, placing her in very close proximity to Gardner during his initiation and matching his description of an older, upper-class woman living in a large house in Highcliffe. This verification coincided with an improved perception of Wicca as a genuine religion with its own traditions and beliefs. Additional research has revealed little else about Clutterbuck or any further verification of Gardner’s claims.
Bibliography
Farrar, Janet, and Stewart Farrar. A Witches’ Bible: The Complete Witches’ Handbook. Custer, Wash.: Phoenix, 1984. Describes in detail various aspects of Clutterbuck’s influence on modern-day Wiccan rituals. Appendix A provides robust historical documentation of Clutterbuck’s life and death, as well as her association with known occultists and spiritualists.
Heselton, Philip. Wiccan Roots: Gerald Gardner and the Modern Witchcraft Revival. London: Capall Bann, 2000. Heselton provides a well-researched history of the people and circumstances behind Gardner’s initiation into a coven of witches in 1939, including sources and explanations that differ from those provided by Ronald Hutton.
Hutton, Ronald. The Triumph of the Moon. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Hutton provides significant evidence supporting the existence of Clutterbuck as Gardner described her, including many indications that she was likely involved in or at the very least aware of alternative spiritual traditions suchas Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, and offshoots of Freemasonry, all of which have found their way into modern-day pagan rituals.
Valiente, Doreen. Witchcraft for Tomorrow. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978. Valiente’s book was the first to cite historical records that confirmed some of the information that Gardner had provided about Clutterbuck and placed Clutterbuck in Highcliffe in the 1930’s and 1940’s.