In the autumn of 1890 a gold and scarlet carriage swept into Kingston Market Place and drew up outside the Griffin Hotel. Sequah had arrived, and for the next four weeks an extraordinary frenzy gripped the town.

Kingston has had a colourful past. Royal coronations, civil war, plots and counter-plots the town has seen them all. But none roused more excitement and mass hysteria than Sequah, a dark and muscular man who was, he said, a North American Indian chief, bringing secret potions from the prairies to heal the sick.

Today, it would be seen as just another PR stunt. To the Kingstonians of the 19th century it was nothing less than a modern miracle, and people flocked in their thousands to a field in Queen Elizabeth Road, where each night Sequah demonstrated his powers and pulled in a fortune from sales of his Prairie Flower and Sequahs Oil.

Prairie Flower, described as an old Indian formula made from North American mineral water and rare prairie flowers, was said to cure all liver, stomach and digestive diseases.

Sequahs Oil was even more marvellous. It could, said Sequah, heal the lame and cure the paralysed, and he set about proving it.

It must have been a dramatic sight. Every night, hundreds of people pressed round his gilded coach while hundreds more, unable to get into the field, thronged the surrounding roads. Two huge spirit lamps, suspended on tall poles, threw a lurid light on the upturned faces of the crowd, as Sequah swung into action.

First he would appear on the carriage steps, forceps in hand, and offer to extract teeth free of charge. There would then be a great rush forward, the police allowing only one person at a time to mount the steps.

The troubled ones were requested to sit down on a cushioned seat and to open their mouth, into which the rays of an electric light fastened to Sequahs head was thrown; and before many of them were evidently aware of it, the offensive ivory was out and in their hand, and they were hurried away off the carriage to make way for the others, reported the Kingston and Surbiton News. In this way, about a couple of dozen persons passed under the operators hands in about as many minutes. Several had two teeth drawn, and one had no less than four extracted. All the time the band played.

Then Sequah got down to the real business of the evening. Anyone crippled with rheumatism, and unable to move without sticks or crutches, was invited to come into the carriage and be rubbed with Sequah Oil in the presence of two independent witnesses.

One by one the cripples were hoisted into the carriage, taken behind a screen and rubbed vigorously with the oil. In each case, after about 15 minutes massage, they were able to throw away their crutches and run nimbly down the steps.

The Kingston and Surbiton News reported a typical scene:

When Sequah presented himself at the door of the Griffin Hotel, on Wednesday evening, he found a crowd of people there, not only filling the street in front, but extending for a considerable distance into the Market Place and into Eden Street. No fewer than three bands arrived, and some 20 or 30 torches were lit. When Sequah stepped into his carriage he found that, instead of horses, about a hundred young men were standing in front of it holding long ropes with which they were prepared to drag him to the field. He was dragged up Eden Street and London Street to the field, the bands playing For Hes A Jolly Good Fellow.

The spectacle was not one easily to be forgotten. The field itself was literally crammed with people, whose upturned faces, lighted by the powerful oil lamps on poles, struck the beholder with a feeling almost of awe, while hundreds of others thronged the road from a long distance away.

At the conclusion of his business, the carriage was again dragged forth, torches were lighted and the return journey was about to be made when another object took up a position in the procession, and at once attracted much notice. This was a pair-oared gig, mounted on a van and bearing the name Sequah on its bow. It was decorated with fairy lamps, Chinese flags and passion flowers by the men employed by Mr A Burgoine, boat builder, as their tribute of respect for this modern a miracle worker.

A number of patients whom Sequah had cured were accommodated with seats in the boat, where a representative of Ally Sloper also found room to caper about. Behind this came about a dozen young men dubbed the Big Head Brigade, wearing huge masks. As the procession moved slowly along, it swelled in proportion and many persons witnessed its progress from windows and other points of vantage.

On reaching the Griffin Hotel, Sequah would fain have alighted, but he was entirely in the hands of the crowd, who dragged him up High Street, along Portsmouth Road, up Brighton Road and Victoria Road and back to Claremont Road, St James Road and Eden Street.

About ten minutes past eleven, Sequah entered his hotel amid the cheers of a multitude of persons to be numbered only by thousands.

Thus ended a demonstration for which it would be hard to find a parallel within the annals of the town.

A more bizarre example of the Sequah mania was when the butchers of Kingston and the surrounding villages organised their own tribute.

Each man carried some implement distinctive of his calling a poleaxe, a hatchet or a steel, and several bore aloft on poles sheeps heards, which had a very gruesome effect in the glare of the torches, conjuring up reminiscences of the horrors of the French Revolution, wrote an eye witness. The procession moved along London Street, down Eden Street to the Market Place, the immense concourse of people of which it was composed cheering vociferously as they went, and Sequah, with his hat off, frequently bowing his acknowledgement.

On reaching the Griffin Hotel, the butchers formed up in two lines on each side of the gateway and gave Sequah a parting cheer as he passed through.

The highlight of Sequahs Kingston triumph was the athletic sports in which all the competitors were cripples whom he had cured. The field in Queen Elizabeth Road was packed with a surging mass of spectators, while crowds and vehicles thronged the roads for miles around.

Each man was handicapped according to his age and infirmity, reported the Kingston and Surbiton News. The scratch man was John Langley, the former paralytic, whose wonderful restoration to health has excited the greatest comment. At a given signal they were off, each striving manfully to get to the front and going along at a pace which must have considerably surprised their friends. But the paralytic quickly out-distanced everybody else and returned to the starting point seven of eight yards in front of his opponents, the others being pretty well together.

Joshua Bennett, 70 years of age, a martyr to rheumatism, was second and John Fasten, aged 74, of Hawks Road, Norbiton, who had suffered from the same complaint for seven years, was third. The first received a leg of mutton and the other two a 6lb joint of meat each.

Amid all this excitement, nobody noticed a small paragraph in the local press reporting a meeting of the directors of Sequah Ltd. This revealed that there were no fewer than 23 Sequahs operating in England, and profits had been so great that still more Sequahs were being groomed to tour the US, Canada and India.

What of Sequahs gilded carriage? It was indeed a splendid vehicle, drawn by four horses and embellished with gilded statues of Red Indians, and oil paintings of the American prairies. It had its own bandstand and a patients couch covered with buffalo skin.

Kingston would not hear a word said against their idol. Doctors who denounced him as a quack were threatened with violence, while Platts Stores, in Thames Street, which tried to undercut Sequah by offering his medicines at a reduced price, had its premises smashed up by a howling mob.

The following year, Sequah was exposed as a fraud by a magazine called Hygiene. It had analysed the miraculous Sequah Oil and found it consisted of two thirds turpentine, one third fish oil and a few drops of camphor. Prairie Oil was ordinary tap water mixed with carbonate of soda and aloes. Considering it cost two shillings (10p) for two ounces a considerable sum in those days one could see why Sequah Ltd could boast such handsome profits.

The Hygienes revelations made no difference to Kingstons faith in its medicine man, and he continued visit the town for years afterwards.

The worship of Sequah was very like the worship of pop idols today. Frederick Smith, who had a smart photographic studio at 38 Clarence Street, took portraits of Sequah and offered copies for sale at 6d (2.5p) and a shilling (5p). He was so inundated with orders he had to take on extra staff to cope with the rush. It would be interesting to know if, of all the thousands that were printed, any still survive, hidden away in an attic, perhaps, or in the leaves of some long-forgotten album?

Charlatan he may have been, but who else can claim to have held such a grip on Kingston, now or at any other time?

By.June Sampson