In the late 1740s, Samuel Meadwell arrived in London. A “raw country fellow” from Northamptonshire, he had come to work as a distiller’s apprentice and hoped to make his fortune.
When a pair of women told him there was “something very particular in [his] face”, he was intrigued. They introduced him to a widow called Mary Smith, who allegedly practised “the art of astrology, before very great people, princes, and the like”. She persuaded Meadwell to wrap all his money in a handkerchief with two peppercorns, some salt and a little mould. After waiting three hours, she explained, he would discover a great fortune.
