Up until 1951 when the witchcraft act was repealed people could and were still tried and imprisoned under the act in the UK, Helen Duncan was the last such act during the Second World War.
Perhaps it is the state of the country during the first half of the 20th century that was accountable for the resurgence in the belief of Witches and Magick, the Boer war, first world war, stock market crash and great depression followed quickly by the second world war, not to mention the abdication of King Edward VIII created a depressing atmosphere in the UK.

A great occult revival was ordered and The Magical Order of the Golden Dawn, which was founded at the end of the nineteenth century, seemed keen to provide this. The Order helped launch the careers of Alistair Crowley and Dion Fortune. Pagan themes were evident in the writings of Rudyard Kipling and Kenneth Grahame, and the investigation of myth and folklore was producing influential books.
Many Wiccans claim to belong to old and ancient covens, whilst this may be true in some cases many of these "claims to fame" are fraudulent.

One of the people to make these claims is Gerald Gardner, an ex-colonial civil servant and a Freemason.
Gardner is generally thought to be the father of modern Wicca and the restoration of witchcraft. He produced two books, the first in 1949 which he stated as being "fictional" and the second in 1951.
Gardner maintained that he had been initiated into a coven in the late 1930s, he was greatly influenced by Margaret Murray. It is still disputed if Gardner merely publicized an existing religion or actually founded it.

Wicca as Gardner saw it was a secret, elitist tradition, much like his Freemasonry.

However a young man named Alex Sanders. Sanders democratized Gardner's Wicca; he claimed he was a representative of an independent strain of Wicca conveniently called Alexandrian Wicca. In reality he merely gave it a twist, Sanders, having a background in ceremonial magick put this mark on Wicca. For many years the two traditions suffered in mutual empathy when really the only difference was that Alexandrian Wicca was more ceremonial and Gardnerian Wicca more folksy.

After Sanders Wicca set off in so many directions that it was impossible to track it.