Wednesday 25 November 2020

Cambridge University Library and those Missing Darwin Notebooks

CUL, looking secure

Astonishing news reaches us that Cambridge University (CUL) has lost two valuable Darwin notebooks.  Even more astonishingly they vanished 20 years ago.  The assumption was that they had been misshelved, and they were only reported missing to the police last month.  A pundit was on the Radio 4 lunchtime news yesterday opining on what he thinks happened.  This is in essence what he suggested:

Regular readers become familiar faces to librarians.  Said librarians are so used to those readers that security becomes less stringent than it should.  Some readers become heavily invested in their research materials to the extent that they develop a proprietorial attitude towards them.  With relaxed security, opportunities arise to make off with said research materials.  Librarians don’t notice.  If they do realise something is not where it should be, they assume it has merely been misplaced and no alarm bells are raised.

What a load of tosh.

I would be amazed if this scenario had occurred.  The following procedure has been in place for many years.  When ordering from the stacks in a CUL reading room, a request slip on carbonless paper is filled in, and it is retained by the librarians while the item is with the reader.  When it is returned to the librarians’ desk, a receipt is handed to the reader and a copy kept for CUL’s records, enabling them to track who has had what.  If someone walked out with material it would quickly become apparent because the sheet to be given back to the reader would still be attached to the library’s copy.  I cannot imagine a librarian dishing out anything without obtaining a filled-in slip, much less valuable Darwin manuscripts.  It is a system designed precisely to prevent theft.

The administrators back in 2000 were unquestionably slack by failing to maintain the requisite vigilance.  According to a Guardian report of 24 November 2020, the notebooks were taken out of storage to be photographed in November 2000 (the photographic unit is in the same building so they did not have to leave the premises), and a routine check in January 2021 noted the box containing them was not in its correct place.  Plainly there was inadequate oversight, but with no indication the manuscripts were requested by a reader in the intervening period.

The librarians complacently assumed they were somewhere about and instituted ‘extensive’ searches for them over the ensuing two decades, a new management team only now, after a final look, conceding they are nowhere to be found.  ‘Extensive building work’ in 2000 has been propounded as a potential scapegoat, hinting at outsiders being responsible, but it seems most unlikely a hod carrier targeted these particular items in an opportunistic theft while nobody was around, or a cat burglar shimmied up scaffolding and prised open a window in the dead of night.

It is worth bearing in mind that a similar situation to the Darwin scandal has arisen before.  In 1989 the archive and rare books of the Society for Psychical Research were transferred from the SPR’s premises at Adam & Eve Mews in London to CUL, because of security concerns.  Rare SPR books were categorised ‘Z’, and I remember long-serving Council member Tony Cornell walking into the building waving a Z book and saying he had stolen it – in order to demonstrate how easy it was to remove them without detection.  This situation led to negotiations for the permanent loan of the SPR’s paper archive (the audio-visual component is housed elsewhere) and Z books to CUL, where they remain today.

Unfortunately, a short time later red-faced CUL officials informed the SPR that several of its rare books had been stolen, though thankfully it didn’t take 20 years to find out.  To their credit they did make efforts to replace the missing volumes as best they could, and following a lengthy internal investigation it was concluded the theft had been an inside job.  The affair was hushed up because it looked bad to have to confess that a member of staff had walked off with valuable property (and in this case belonging to someone else).  No lackadaisical librarian had unwittingly allowed them to be removed by a cunning reader, they were lifted directly from the stacks.  My money is on the Darwin notebooks having gone in a similar manner, the perpetrator taking advantage of their trip to reprographics.

The ‘expert’ on Radio 4 thought they would turn up eventually because their fame makes them instantly recognisable, which is to be hoped for, but he had already argued that readers can become greatly attached to their research objects (though not usually to the extent of taking them home), so they could be sitting in a private library being gloated over.  They may come to light as the result of a sale or be voluntarily returned to CUL, but perhaps only on the death of the holder, a possibility floated by the deputy director of Research Collections who was interviewed by the Guardian.  If that is the case, we could be in for a long wait.

Though I am not an authority on international crime, it seems doubtful they are being used as collateral by organised crime interests because, unlike an old master painting, they will not look obviously hugely valuable to the untutored eye; but I could be wrong.  Let’s just hope they do not suffer the same fate as those rare books boosted from a warehouse while waiting to be shipped off to auction which were found in a damp hole, or have not been seized by disgruntled creationists who consider Darwin to have been Satan’s catspaw and destroyed.  The only positive note in this sorry tale is that the manuscripts have been put online, so at least the contents are still available, even though they do not possess the aura of the missing originals.

Sunday 22 November 2020

The Society for Psychical Research’s electrocardiograph and the Whipple

Courtesy Whipple Museum, Cambridge












On Friday 13 November 2020, the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, one of the University of Cambridge’s museums, tweeted:

 @WhippleMuseum

For #FridayThe13th, it's #MuseumsUnlocked day of demons, devils & ghosts! This #Cambridge Instrument Company portable electrocardiograph belonged to the Society for Psychical Research & was probably used to record the physiology of mediums!

 This was accompanied by two photographs, one a general view of the electrocardiograph, the other a close-up of a plate on the side, which says:

CAMBRIDGE PORTABLE
ELECTROCARDIOGRAPH

[Symbol]

THE PROPERTY OF

SOCIETY FOR PSYCHIC RESEARCH
LONDON

 
I retweeted it on the Society for Psychical Research’s Twitter feed (@spr1882), pointing out that the Society’s name had been spelled incorrectly.  The Whipple responded by asking if I knew why.  I didn’t, and said I would check with the SPR’s archives officer.  He stated it was before his time and he had no idea either.

 

Courtesy Whipple Museum, Cambridge

 

Curious, I sent a private message to the Whipple asking what they could tell me about their acquisition of the device.  They said it was donated in 1976 by someone from the University’s Department of Colloid Science.  Intriguingly, my anonymous correspondent added: ‘I'm afraid I cannot give you their name’ but noted that an online search did not indicate an association with the SPR.  The individual responsible for adding the plate, which looks pre-1976, was obviously not completely familiar with the Society’s name. 

I wondered how this piece of apparatus arrived at the Whipple.  The museum’s online catalogue page states it was built by the Cambridge Instrument Company, Ltd, in 1933, and the symbol in the middle of the plate is the company logo.  Robert Whipple, whose collection of scientific instruments formed the basis of the Whipple Museum, was an early employee, rising to become managing director and chairman of the company.

 The reference to colloid science was a starting point, though it could have been a red herring with no relevance other than that the person last in possession happened by chance to be a member of the department.  However, it proved a fruitful lead, and led me to conclude that there is a strong possibility this device may have been used in experiments with Austrian medium Rudi Schneider, who was tested by the Society for Psychical Research between October 1933 and March 1934.

 The term colloid science appears in SPR publications only once, in the Journal for March/April 1942, referring to the endowment of a studentship at the University of Cambridge to honour the memory of Oliver Gatty, an SPR member.  The studentship was ‘to give an opportunity to scientists of any nationality working in any branch of Science to carry on their work for a year in the Department of Colloid Science at Cambridge, provided that in this work Physics was being used to help Biological Research, or Biology was helping Physical Research.’  Aged only 32, Oliver Gatty was severely injured in a gas explosion while conducting research in Cambridge, dying at Addenbrooke’s hospital on 5 June 1940.  He left a widow, Penelope, and a posthumous daughter, Tirril.

 Gatty worked with Eric Rideal, who was Professor of Colloid Science at Cambridge, and he also worked in the University’s Department of Zoology.  He had joined the SPR in 1933 and became a Council member the following year.  He was a member of ‘the Cambridge Committee’ exploring paranormal cognition; investigated Rudi Schneider with Theodore Besterman, about which they co-authored a paper in the SPR’s Proceedings; and at the time of his death was conducting dowsing experiments.  His obituary in the SPR’s Proceedings stresses his enthusiasm and likeability.

 Oliver’s family background is interesting.  His sister Hester was unhappily married to Siegfried Sassoon.  His brother Richard, who attended one of the Besterman/Gatty Schneider sessions, married Pamela Strutt, granddaughter of John James Strutt, second Baron Rayleigh.  Her uncle, John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, was SPR President in 1919; her cousin Robert John Strutt, 4th Baron Rayleigh, was SPR President in 1937-1938.

 Most of the 1933.34 Schneider sittings took place in a purpose-built seance room at its premises in Tavistock Square, London, not in Cambridge.  They were led by Besterman, the SPR’s Investigation Officer, with his collaborator Oliver Gatty monitoring the equipment.  Besterman and Gatty’s article in the SPR’s Proceedings, ‘Report of an Investigation into the Mediumship of Rudi Schneider’, describes the set-up at length.

 Gatty installed infrared equipment, following a similar arrangement that had been used with some success by Eugene and Marcel Osty at the Institut Métapsychique in Paris during a series of 90 sittings with Rudi in late 1930 and 1931 (which the SPR helped to fund) and in a series of 27 sittings conducted in London by Lord Charles Hope for the SPR between October and December 1932.  The aim of utilising infrared was to see if a psychic emanation from Rudi would interfere with the beam but Gatty did not observe any absorptions, indicating the beam remained unobstructed.

 The Besterman/Gatty report includes the following statement:

 ‘The space C (see plan, Fig. 1) is divided from the cabinet by a solid partition, reaching from floor to ceiling.  It contained a shelf, later two shelves, stretching from wall to partition, on which stood a Moll galvanometer, with its lamp and scale, a cardiograph embodying an Einthoven string galvanometer, a voltmeter and a switchboard. This apparatus was observed by 0. G. [Oliver Gatty], who had to crawl under the lower shelf in order to get to and from his chair.’ (p. 254)

 Later we learn:

 ‘The [photo-electric] cell has an approximate resistance of 1800 ohms and was connected in series to a Cambridge Instrument Co. portable electrocardiograph Einthoven galvanometer having a 1400 ohms gilt glass fibre.’ (p. 279)

 The technology brought to bear on Rudi was highly sophisticated and drew heavily on Gatty’s physics expertise.  Sadly, after the extensive series of 55 sittings with Schneider (including four informal sittings, three held at Oliver Gatty’s home in Lowndes Square, London SW1.), the authors concluded that ‘In the event no phenomena clearly of a paranormal kind were obtained’ (p, 252) so their elaborate procedures were in vain.

 My Whipple informant confirmed that the description in the report matches the device held by the museum: the Einthoven galvanometer is a key element of the Cambridge Instrument Company’s electrocardiograph.  Thus it can be seen that an electrocardiograph manufactured by the Cambridge Instrument Company was employed by Theodore Besterman and Oliver Gatty for these SPR sittings.  The 1933 date for the Whipple’s machine ties in with the start of the experiments in October the same year.

 It is a reasonable assumption that the Whipple’s electrocardiograph is the one used in the Schneider sessions.  Oliver Gatty moved to Cambridge, having been there for several years before his death according to his obituary in the SPR’s Proceedings.  It is likely he took the electrocardiograph with him and it languished in his department for nearly four decades until a member of staff donated it in 1976.  Whoever was responsible for arranging the transfer, the survival of this historic item from 1933 is remarkable, and the Whipple are to be congratulated for carefully preserving it.

 The Gatty family retained their connection with the SPR after Oliver’s death, and several members died in the mid-1970s, around the time of the Whipple’s acquisition.  Oliver’s widow Penelope, who had helped her husband with experiments, joined the SPR in 1940, becoming a Council member and later a vice-president.  She married Thomas Balogh, Baron Balogh, in 1945 but continued to style herself Mrs O. Gatty in membership lists (apart from being listed as ‘Gatty, Mrs O., Lady Penelope Balogh,’,in the 1974 list though divorced from Balogh by 1970).  She died in June 1975.  Richard Gatty died in September 1975.  He was not a member of the SPR but his wife Pamela joined in 1945.  She died in 2009.  Oliver and Penelope’s daughter Tirril was also a member for a while.  Hester Sassoon, who had married Siegfried in 1933, joined the SPR in 1944 and died in 1973.  Theodore Besterman died in November 1976.

 

Acknowledgement: I would like to thank my contact at the Whipple Museum for prompt and helpful responses to my questions.


References

Besterman, Theodore & Gatty, Oliver. ‘Report of an Investigation into the Mediumship of Rudi Schneider’, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 42, 1934, pp. 251-85.

‘Obituary: Mr Oliver Gatty’, Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 46, 1940. pp. 206-207.

‘A Memorial to Oliver Gatty’, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 32, 1942, p. 154.

 

 

Saturday 17 October 2020

A Natural History of Ghosts gets controversial


Radio 4 is running a ten-part series, starting Monday 19 October, called A Natural History of Ghosts, which also happens to be the title of a 2012 book by Roger Clarke.  One might readily assume the series is based on the book, and Roger would be amply rewarded for his involvement, but it soon transpired that the first he had heard about the series was when the BBC promoted it.

 The radio series is co-written and presented by Kirsty Logan, a novelist, mentor and speaker (for £175 an hour plus travel), but not a name particularly known in the field of psychical research, and therefore possessing no obvious credentials for her participation.  As is the way, she took to Twitter to announce in a proprietorial manner her pleasure at the forthcoming broadcasts, declaring ‘I’m so glad my ghosts are being unleashed!  A Natural History of Ghosts starts on Monday 19 October, 1.45, on @BBCRadio4, then a new episode every weekday until Halloween,’ with a link to the programme page on the BBC website.

 Roger replied to say he was unsure why the title of his book was being used, and disappointed it had been done without letting him know.  Logan responded in an ebullient tone to thank him for alerting her to his work, stating she did not know it was the title of his book, and assuring him that none of the content of the book was used or referred to in the series.  Roger was puzzled, and replied, ‘You’ve never come across my book?  On internet searches?  On Twitter?’  He received a flat denial, Logan promising to pick it up and adding that although she had co-written and was narrating the series, she had not chosen the title.

 This is where it gets unsavoury.  Roger was interested to know who chose the title, as he had pitched it to Radio 4 in 2013-14 (the book had received a huge amount of positive press when it was published and would have made an excellent series).  To his enquiry answer came there none from Logan, but in the meantime an observer, Richard Kovitch, weighed in to show her claim not to know about the book was inaccurate.

 He wrote: ‘You [Logan] read Roger’s book in 2016, and even list it on your website as ‘Best Beautifully-Written, Rambling Book about Ghosts: A Natural History of Ghosts, Roger Clarke.’  No ambiguity about that, and a screenshot from said website supported his contention (as of this writing it is still there, having been deleted then restored).  As someone else noted, she had actually tagged Roger in a 2016 tweet listing his book in her top 50 of the year.

 Logan promptly did some judicious pruning of her tweets, but as Roger noted, ‘you can never really erase things properly from the internet.’  As an example, someone else popped up to tell him about a tweet by producer Elizabeth Ann Duffy in March 2020 declaring ‘Right Twitter, @kirstylogan and I are using this time to start on out projects (sic) on the cultural evolution of ghosts.  So recommend reading to me, tell me which cool academics are doing the most interesting #ghostlore research.  I need all things #ghost related to read.’  A reply listed two titles, one being Roger’s book.  Ignorance by either Logan or Duffy was therefore hard to plead.

 Following this shabby episode Roger called on Radio 4 to change the title of their series, something unlikely to happen as it was being heavily trailed (it may be that I have not been listening at the right time, but I get the impression they ceased after the controversy broke) and for Logan to apologise for lying to him, which seemed equally unlikely as she was ignobly pretending the sorry business had not happened (as was Duffy).  He also asked fans of the book to listen carefully to the series to see if any of his book’s content had been lifted without credit, while wondering aloud why, as there was clearly an alignment of approach judging by the common title, he had not only not been invited to contribute but told they had not heard of him.  Perhaps he wasn’t ‘cool’ enough.

 The result of this BBC foot-shooting was a massive outpouring of support for Roger, and a boost in sales of the book, plus others tagging Radio 4 and asking what the station intended to do about it.  What Radio 4 intended to do about it was borrow the Logan playbook and remain silent.  Someone who did not remain silent was Christopher Josiffe (author of Gef! The Strange Tale of an Extra-Special Talking Mongoose) who announced that he had been interviewed for the episode on poltergeists but had asked for his contribution to be removed as he now felt uncomfortable being associated with the project.

 While there is no copyright on titles (hence those crying plagiarism on the title alone are wrong), it could be construed as passing off, and according to Roger some contributors had assumed he was involved.  However, it is difficult to argue he has suffered any loss of income when sales have increased as a result; but it does seem a shame to have lifted the distinctive title of a well-regarded book without acknowledgement.  Roger asked me to read it and comment when it was in draft, and I thought it sensitively written and informative, and a solid overview.  Even without her own evidence that Logan had read it, it would be hard to believe she could have researched an entire series, if she had done so properly, and not come across it.

 One wonders how the duplication came about.  Did a producer (Duffy?) think it up independently, was it perchance a case of cryptomnesia, or just a cynical disregard for the feelings of an author, caring more for the snappy title than the effect it would have; or perhaps in the arrogant way media people often have, assuming Roger would be flattered.  In the event, they have done Roger a backhanded favour by giving him exposure, but it hardly excuses the way the situation has been handled.

 Let’s hope that after this entirely avoidable unpleasantness the series is worth listening to, and makes good on Logan’s assurance Roger’s book was not tapped for its content.  Many ears will be listening to make sure such is the case.  It is hard enough for freelancers to make a living, and people who work for the national broadcaster should be careful how their actions may affect others with less power.  It is also pathetic that Logan should be caught out saying she did not know about Roger’s book when it was one of her top reads only four years ago – and the evidence was so readily apparent.  Unless of course she does not in fact read the significant number of books she claims to get through, and really had forgotten all about it.

 I’m sure I’ll be updating this story.

 

 Update 8 November 2020:

 More evidence of Logan’s knowledge of Roger’s book emerged before the broadcasts commenced in the form of her holding a copy on her Instagram feed in 2016 and referring to a startling detail that had caught her eye, indicating she had at least skimmed it.  Her initial profession of ignorance sounded more and more hollow with each new revelation, and actually peculiar; did she not realise how easy it was to check?

 One positive result of the debacle was the edition of Roger’s book selling out and requiring a reprint.  Less satisfactory was a meeting he eventually had with the BBC in which he expected to be offered an apology, not least for the corporation misleading contributors who assumed he was involved, but he was told by the executive that they did not feel they had done anything wrong.  Roger was offered a link on the series website, but declined on the grounds it would be confusing.

 It was too little too late anyway, and the negative comments continued until eventually the BBC cracked.  After transmission had already begun it quietly retitled the series A History of Ghosts, dropping the Natural.  Roger still had to find out from a supporter, though, as the BBC did not let him know they had done it, and Natural still appeared in the actual episodes as Logan spoke the title.

 Then belatedly, as the series wended its way to the Hallowe’en conclusion, Roger reported that he had heard from the BBC, apologising for any distress caused and telling him they had changed the title to make the lack of connection with the book clear, adding, ‘The title clash was coincidental.’  As Roger sarcastically pointed out, because Logan and Duffy both knew of his book beforehand it was ‘a very special and entirely new form of coincidence previously unknown to science.’

 The Beeb certainly must have been rattled to make the change after commencement, and Roger’s assessment that they knew they were passing off was reasonable, thanks to Logan and Duffy’s clear previous knowledge of the book.  Such attempts to mollify Roger did not prevent the story (sans names) appearing as a gossip item in the Times Literary Supplement, then in Private Eye, which included names and did not shrink from using the term ‘shameless lie’ in connection with Logan’s claim not to have known of Roger’s book.

 As for the series itself, it was well-written, enjoyable, appropriately atmospheric, and refreshingly incorporated ghost lore from around the world.  Logan’s generalisations and anecdotal approach were balanced by website-only podcasts featuring experts who grounded each episode (apart from the one on poltergeists, which was missing Chris Josiffe’s contribution), and were generally more informative than Logan.

 The broadcasts are sufficiently distinct from Rogers’s words to ensure no charge of plagiarism could be supported, and Logan is experienced enough not to have needed to resort to such tactics.  The difference between the two writers is illustrated by the unlikelihood Clarke would mistake Henry James for his brother William, as Logan did when quoting William’s famous remark about white crows.

 It is a pity the BBC ran into so much needless controversy over the title when in all other respects the programme was fine for a 15-minute slot between the lunchtime news and the afternoon repeat of The Archers.  Logan and Duffy must be fervently wishing they had called it something else, and saved all the fuss over such a minor point that has tainted their efforts and damaged their reputations.

  

Update 1 December 2020:

 After the flurry of critical activity in the run-up to Hallowe’en, things went quiet following the series’ conclusion.  On 25 November Roger tweeted that as he had decided Kirsty Logan was unlikely to apologise he was not going to talk about her further, and added that there was no need for his supporters to continue to be active on his behalf.

 It wasn’t quite the end of the matter, however, as the Christmas 2020 issue of Fortean Times (FT400, p.55) carries a Forum article on the subject written by Roger, ‘An unnatural history of ghosts’.  This runs briefly through the chronology, and concludes with the declaration: ‘Under conventional plagiarism laws, I don’t own the title of my book.  But I do own the private haunted space it has made.’

 Whatever the legal and moral ins and outs of the ownership of haunted spaces, he is entitled to feel miffed by Logan and Duffy’s contortions and the grudging way the BBC handled his complaint.  What puzzled me, though, was his assertion earlier in the article that ‘A Natural History of Ghosts has only ever been used once before, and that was by me.’  While it may be the first use for a book title in English, it has certainly been used before, albeit in German.

 Ernst Krause gave it to his 1863 book, Die naturgeschichte der gespenster; physikalisch-physiologische studien (The Natural History of Ghosts; Physical-Physiological Studies).  I had assumed this was Roger’s source, though Krause’s name does not appear in his book, but apparently it wasn’t.  While strictly speaking his title is not original, Roger’s reuse has no bearing on the passing-off issue with the BBC as the English-language version is so closely identified with him.

 As a firm supporter of the BBC I was sorry to contemplate this self-inflicted wound, but I am also sad the podcast Christopher Josiffe narrated about Gef was not, at his insistence, included on the series website, as while they were all excellent, it is one I would have particularly enjoyed.  Presumably it still exists in the BBC’s archives and hopefully one day, in another context, we will be able to hear it.

Wednesday 29 July 2020

All About History and the Victorian Occult


All About History is a heavily-illustrated magazine from Future Publishing Ltd with mostly short articles containing basic information on miscellaneous subjects.  The cover story in issue 93 (August 2020) is ‘Victorian Occult’, subtitled ‘Lifting the shroud on the 19th century’s obsession with death and the afterlife.’  The tone is set by the question on the cover: ‘Was a morbid obsession with the paranormal fuelled by fraudsters?’ and the editorial line is that the individuals discussed were fraudulent, with no further discussion required.

‘Victorian Occult’ was written, apparently in haste, by Callum McKelvie (he has another article, ‘Atomic Spies’, in the same issue so he would have been busy).  He is billed as Features Editor on the magazine’s staff and therefore not someone with deep knowledge of the topics covered.  These are brief, badly linked, sprinkled with incorrect facts, and containing nothing that could not have been culled from a basic internet search, supplemented with quotes from respected scholar Simone Natale.

We begin naturally with the Fox sisters in 1848, and the first error (leaving aside the uncertainty over the children’s actual ages, McKelvie sticking with Wikipedia) is a lulu because Natale must have been interviewed over the phone and McKelvie misheard Hydesville, New York State, where it all began, as Huddersfield!  We move on to Maria B Hayden, who brought mediumship to England, Daniel Dunglas (spelled here Donglas) Home and Robert Browning’s attack on him in Mr. Sludge, "The Medium", and mediums Charles Williams and Frank Herne (spelled here Herme).  William Mumler’s spirit photography segues to voodoo and then to the Society for Psychical Research (note to editor: please tell your subs, if you have them, that it is ‘for’, not ‘For’).

In keeping with the negative tone of the article, the SPR is totally mischaracterised.  After noting that in Britain ‘the Spiritualist craze was in full-swing (sic),’ we are told the SPR ‘was founded in 1882 with the intention of investigating (“without prejudice or prepossession of any kind”) various paranormal phenomena and acted as an extremely fierce proponent of the movement.’  That statement could only have been written by someone ignorant of the SPR’s ‘no corporate views’ policy, to which it has adhered since its foundation, and unaware of the complex relationship the Society has always had with Spiritualists.

The Ghost Club is mentioned, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, literary ghost stories, W T Stead, his assistant on Borderland Ada Goodrich Freer and her investigation of Ballechin House.  This sorry tale is used as a stick to beat the SPR, as McKelvie claims that because of criticism over her handling of the case, ‘rather than standing by one of their own, the Society For Psychical Research quickly disowned the clairvoyant and discredited all findings of the investigation,’ as if it acted dishonourably.  In fact she had behaved fraudulently and plagiarised material by Father Allan MacDonald, good reasons for the SPR to distance itself from her.

Then despite the title ‘Victorian Occult’ it’s on to the First World War, Sir Oliver Lodge and Raymond, Dennis Wheatley and Aleister Crowley, both it seems writing in the 1920s and ‘30s, and Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan.  Further comments from Natale bring it all up to the recent past with Most Haunted.  The main article is accompanied by two supplementary pages, one on ‘Ghost Stories’ (paragraphs on The Hammersmith Ghost, Spring-Heeled Jack, 50 Berkeley Square, the 1855 Devil’s Footprints and the Theatre Royal’s Man in Grey ghost), the other an interview with Alan Murdie about the Ghost Club.

This is a dreadful article, lazy, simplistic and error-strewn, shoehorning disparate strands of the paranormal into the convenient but unanalysed and uninformative catch-all ‘occult’, even though it does not apply to organisations like the SPR or the Ghost Club, or to the Spiritualist movement. Magazines like All About History are supposed to provide information while entertaining a general audience, not to misinform, and this mess does its readers a disservice.  Anyone tempted, as I was, to sport out £5.20 on the strength of the article would be well advised to save the money and check out more reliable sources (which do not include Wikipedia, Mr McKelvie), not least the SPR’s free online Psi Encyclopedia.

Tuesday 21 July 2020

G A Smith's Thirteen Months in a Haunted House


Writer and anthologist Tim Prasil runs a website called Brom Bones Books which contains a section titled The Ghost Hunter Hall of Fame. His latest inductee is George Albert Smith (1864-1959), on the grounds that Smith conducted two investigations, a minor one in Norwich and a far more significant one in Brighton, where he and his wife Laura lived in an allegedly haunted house for over a year. The tribute is headed ‘George Albert Smith: A Short-Term Ghost Hunter Who Conducted a Long-Term Ghost Hunt’, and I was pleased to see this recognition of part of Smith’s contributions to psychical research. The article relies heavily on Frank Podmore’s ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’ in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, which does not mention Smith by name, and I was surprised that Prasil ends with the words ‘It makes perfect sense that Smith is the fellow who signs his name “X.Y.” in Podmore’s article – but how do we know that it was him? For certain?’ If it is apparently uncertain, one is likely to muse, why is Smith in the Ghost Hunter Hall of Fame?

However, Prasil can rest easy, for there is much documentary evidence to indicate it was Smith (and Laura) who made psychical research history, before Ada Goodrich-Freer’s investigation at Ballechin House and Harry Price’s at Borley, by occupying a house for an extended period in an attempt to detect paranormal activity. Of that occupation, Society for Psychical Research (SPR) historian Alan Gauld describes it as ‘one of the eerier cases of which we have records.’[1] It is possibly even unique in its way: ‘...ghosts are kittle cattle, and so far as I am aware the nearest any member of the Society got to encountering a ghost was to hear odd raps and other minor noises in the Brighton house occupied on behalf of the SPR in 1888-9 by Mr G A Smith.’[2] The following is divided into three parts: the investigation prior to Mr and Mrs Smith’s residency, the residency itself, and the aftermath.


The investigation

Smith’s identity only became known at a much later date, after the case was covered by the Daily Mail.[3] It was designated G. 187 in the SPR’s numbering system, and the generally sceptical Podmore considered it significant because it involved two separate sets of residents of a house who both reported phenomena with no communication between them having taken place (though this was not true, as will be seen). Podmore’s ‘other point of view' as indicated in his title was that apparitions were products of telepathy, and this type of case, where there was apparently no telepathic connection, challenged his hypothesis.

Statements from both sets of occupants are included in Podmore’s article. The location of the terraced house was withheld in the public account but the file in the SPR archive identifies it as 18 Prestonville Road, Brighton.[4] The first statement is from a Miss L. Morris, who wrote to the SPR in June 1888.[5] She and her aunt had taken a lease in October 1882 and odd events began the day they moved in, with the sound of footsteps round the drawing-room table, though nobody was visible. Then a sister heard footsteps upstairs (her two sisters were occasional visitors throughout the tenancy). Miss Morris searched the house but found no intruder. Yet that night she could hear footsteps trudging round the house and felt a presence of someone in her room. There followed further footsteps each night until she had become used to it. About three weeks later she saw the figure of a woman, in black with a face ‘intensely sad and deadly pale.’ Not thinking anybody would believe her, she kept this secret for three years. The household also experienced a great deal of annoyance, from June 1884, with the front door bell being rung frequently. This, with knocks on the door in addition, continued for three weeks. Nobody was seen to ring the bell though the residents were on guard.

Other phenomena included in 1885 seeing a woman in black glide along the basement hall. Miss Morris thought it might be her aunt but she found her in the drawing-room. Sometime after this the aunt died, and the family vacated the house in December 1886 as the lease had expired, to Miss Morris’s evident relief. She attributed her experiences to a woman having committed suicide in the house some years earlier, which she had been told about by a friend. Podmore visited Miss Morris on 9 July 1888 (the month following receipt of her letter). She believed that the house had remained vacant until taken by a Mrs G, and said that her predecessor, Miss E, had not experienced anything untoward during her time there. She had clearly been doing some investigation prior to writing to the SPR. Podmore also spoke to one of Miss Morris’s sisters, who confirmed the particulars.

Podmore was not the original investigator of the case but had taken over from fellow SPR member Edmund Gurney in unfortunate circumstances. Gurney had seen Mrs G on 13 June 1888 (coincidentally the date of Smith’s marriage to Laura Bayley), and rated her credibility as a witness very highly: ‘I have never received an account in which the words and manner of telling were less suggestive of exaggeration or superstition.’[6] He asked her to compile a report of her occupancy and this was dated 15 June 1888. Gurney’s visit to Mrs G was only a week and a half before his death, and the investigation might have provided a reason for Gurney to be in Brighton on the night he died at the Royal Albion Hotel (the night of 22/23 June 1888).[7]

This is certainly more plausible than the theory advanced by Trevor Hall in his 1964 book The Strange Case of Edmund Gurney that Gurney was in Brighton to meet Smith’s sister, summoned by her so that she could tell him her brother had cheated in telepathy experiments the two men had conducted together. Hall does not mention the possibility that Gurney’s visit was connected to the case at all, probably because, if Gurney were staying at the hotel to conduct interviews and perhaps arrange Smith’s tenancy rather than in despair at having uncovered cheating in telepathy experiments, it very much undermines the likelihood that the suicide theory is correct.[8] One loose end is that the obituaries in Light and The Athenaeum say that Gurney’s body was identified by an unposted letter in his pocket inviting someone (unnamed), a ‘colleague’ according to the former, to join him on whatever business had taken him to Brighton, and it is unclear why he should have wanted someone else to participate in this investigation.[9]

Mrs G, a widow with two children, took the house in November 1887. She recounted a variety of unexplained phenomena, beginning about a fortnight after moving in.[10] The first were sobs and thumps at night and a voice saying ‘Oh, do forgive me!’ three times. She also experienced unexplained thumps, crashes and tramping sounds. The door bell rang repeatedly even when she stood by the window and could see that nobody had approached the door. The children and servant, not to mention the dog, were badly affected too, and one of her children, Edith, claimed to see a white face peering round a door. During a visit she made to them the neighbours mentioned bells ringing, but they linked this to a ‘wicked servant’ of Miss Morris’s. Edith saw ‘a little woman’ pass her and later her younger sister Florence saw a man standing by the window. The knocks and other noises became worse, including the sensation of someone entering the children’s room, shaking the bed and walking out. On occasion they saw lights in their room. Mrs G discovered from the landlord that a woman had hanged herself in the house. A succession of friends and relatives came to stay but did not experience any significant disturbance.

At this point Mrs G exchanged notes with Miss Morris, so her account is not independent, as Podmore suggested when he wrote that the case was ‘remarkable because two successive sets of occupants of the house, without any communication with each other, or any conscious knowledge on the part of the second set that the first set had had experiences, were “haunted” by sounds and sights.’[11] Mrs G even recounts stories Miss Morris had told her, and it is entirely possible that these had coloured her own perceptions. Eventually Mrs G asked the landlord to release them early from the lease but was told that she would have to pay until Christmas (this would appear to be late March). The children continued to see ghostly figures so Mrs G took them to London leaving the servant and her father in charge. However, phenomena continued in her absence, and she finally left in early May 1888, after a troubled five months. Gurney implied that the expense and inconvenience of her decision to quit the house told in her favour. He never interviewed Miss Morris and Podmore, taking over the investigation, interviewed both: Mrs G on 8 July 1888 and Miss Morris, along with Mrs G’s daughters and Anne H – Mrs G’s servant – the following day.[12] Miss Morris and Mrs G both wrote their accounts in June 1888.

In addition to his interview with Mrs G, Podmore had access to her diary from which he reproduces extracts and which add a measure of verification to her account.[13] He includes witness statements from Anne H dated 16 June (her graphic account suggests a febrile atmosphere in the house) and various other people, including three professional gentlemen who, having heard of the house’s reputation, mounted their own investigation in May, the month Mrs G left.[14] Two of them provided statements to Podmore, and he interviewed all three, though not particularly vigorously. They heard the bell ring and crashing sounds, and W O D saw ‘the dress of a super-material being,’ while the Rev. G O saw an entire figure (undescribed), but Podmore rightly points out that they would have heard all manner of stories before they visited. C also saw part of the dress but did not provide a written statement.[15] While W O D was convinced of the reality of their experiences (‘I am firmly convinced in my own mind that the phenomena we beheld and the noises we heard were the results of supernatural forces’), this was not a serious investigation because on a second visit they were thinking of leaving after only thirty minutes when they saw the ‘form.’[16]

The final element included by Podmore is a newspaper extract dated 5 April 1879, which provides details of a suicide in the house.[17] However, Podmore did not feel that there was a strong link with the phenomena subsequently experienced and, unsurprisingly, did not consider it indicated post-mortem agency strongly. Instead he discusses such possible explanations for experiences occurring independently (as he saw it) to two sets of tenants in terms of coincidence; apparitions resulting from alarm caused by the strange noises, themselves an elaboration of real sounds – an example of point de repère; or even telepathy from Miss Morris to Mrs G. He certainly saw the experiences as hallucinations rather than as a ‘semi-corporeal ghostly entity’ for, ‘To me it is not obvious why the dreams of the living should possess less potency than the imagined dreams of the unknown dead.’[18] This tack irritated Andrew Lang, who refers obliquely to the case in an article in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, in which he accuses Podmore of taking ‘the gilt off the spectral gingerbread in a very ruthless manner’ by explaining phenomena as rats or the wind, or some other noise which is misinterpreted as an hallucination.[19]


The residency

The importance of the case, despite the difficulties in unravelling its causes, was such that Smith and Laura moved in for an extended stay on 17 August 1888, three months after Mrs G left and two months after their wedding.[20] The finances of this arrangement are obscure, and Gauld reasonably suggests that the SPR was subsidising the tenancy.[21] Smith’s narrative is described as by ‘An Associate’ of the SPR, and takes the form of his diary for the period.[22] After describing the house’s appearance and layout (but not providing a plan), Smith discusses its location, particularly its proximity to the station and the clarity of shunting operations when the wind is favourable.[23] He adds that the house is close to a branch line though they never heard noise from it, however there is an implication that noise from the station might account for some of the sounds heard by the occupants. Smith says that they did not experience anything ‘startling or violent,’ and did not see any apparitions. Smith seems to be downplaying his time in the house because while not violent, some of the noises they heard appear to have startled the occupants, and the account appears to belie Smith’s anodyne verdict.

They had visitors from time to time and Smith provides statistics on them, indicating that he kept careful records. He says 25 men and 14 women slept in the house over a total of 137 nights, and presumably the presence of women staying at night would have necessitated a married couple rather than a single man in charge of the operation. Smith even notes which bedrooms were used by visitors and gives occupancy rates, presumably a measure designed to track who was where should anything noteworthy occur. The visitors included a smattering of military men – Smith refers to Colonel and Mrs H, Lieutenant-Colonel S and Captain N.

Smith supplies his diary entries, of which there are 21 published in Proceedings, most of them brief, covering the entire stay. Initially the Smiths were on their own, but a maid-servant, M W, arrived on 6 September.[24] A comparison of the unpublished account with the published one shows that many references to SPR personnel and Smith’s family staying in the house were deleted. Laura’s mother and sister (unnamed, possibly Eva, who stayed in February 1889) were there from 15-23 November, but this is missing from the published record. Henry and Eleanor Sidgwick were regular guests; on one occasion Mrs Sidgwick brought ‘Miss Balfour’ (presumably her sister Alice) with her and they stayed from 11-14 December. On another occasion Mrs Sidgwick and Alice Johnson shared a room for a week. Mrs Sidgwick came back with Henry and they stayed for three weeks – but in different rooms.[25] On another occasion they stayed for eight nights, again separately. Henry Sidgwick also came alone for a week and Mrs Sidgwick squeezed in a couple of days on her own. These visits were all excluded from the written report, but nobody experienced anything out of the ordinary. Visits seem to have been more frequent in the summer months, suggesting that there was a certain mixing of business and pleasure.

However, although their visitors were not troubled by odd occurrences, the tenants were. The first incident involved Laura, three days after they moved in. Twice she heard what sounded like a zinc pail being rattled, though there was no evidence that the pails had been disturbed. On 4 September Smith ‘returned from town,’ indicating that he combined occupation of the house with his duties for the SPR in London. On this occasion Laura, who had been alone in the house all day, had on two occasions heard loud crashing sounds though nothing had been displaced. While investigating this, they both heard what sounded like the crack of a whip, but again there was nothing to account for it. The following evening Smith heard similar crashing sounds while writing at his desk, Laura ‘dozing upon the sofa.’ Oddly, though they seemed loud to Smith, they did not rouse her. As their predecessors had experienced, they were subjected to the front-door bell ringing, but after one of these Laura was quick enough to spot children running away. Mysterious bell-ringing occurred later as well (the house may have been a target for children because of its reputation). On 18 October Smith was in London when knocking was heard by Laura at 5.30pm.

Later in September Smith heard gentle tapping upstairs. While on this occasion he did not consider the possibility that the noises came from next door, he did at other times. One day the maid-servant said she had heard sounds while in bed and had wondered if they came from next door, but said they sounded very close. Smith mentions here that the adjacent property on the same side as their staircase was empty. Another day Colonel H heard ‘mild groans and loud breathing,’ which Smith attributed to the adjacent bedroom in the house next door (presumably on the other side), possibly one phenomenon which was explicable, if too delicate to describe.[26] On a couple of occasions, noises occurred while Smith was writing, which suggests that he brought work home as his diary entries were generally not long.

The longest entries are both in December, when something definitely out of the ordinary took place. Smith shows a remarkable steadiness of nerve in confronting the unknown. At 8.30pm on 9 December he was on his own in the house, writing, when he heard a bumping noise moving around just outside then away from his door. Smith took his reading lamp and went to investigate but found nothing. He returned to his desk but five minutes later the sound recommenced, from the position where it had left off before. This time he ran out so fast he forgot the lamp but as he reached the stairs the sounds ceased. In the dark but not wanting to waste time fetching the lamp, he went downstairs backwards, feeling the stairs with his hands. On reaching the kitchen, in the basement, he turned up the gas but once more could not see anything to account for the sounds. Returning once more to his writing, he shut the door and settled to his task when there were three thumps just outside. This might have unnerved a lesser man but Smith ‘sprang across the room and threw the door open.’ Predictably there was nothing there, and he was left not able to account for what had happened. He discounted the possibility that the sounds emanated from next door as they were so clear. Smith and Laura did not at that point have a cat.

On 15 December, at 11.35pm, there was a strange incident, but it throws a fascinating sidelight on the Smiths. Their bedroom was separated from the sitting-room by curtains. In the sitting room was a piano and above it on the wall hung a guitar. Smith says that he had gone to bed, leaving Laura in the sitting room saying her prayers by the fire as it was cold. This is an interesting insight, suggesting Laura’s piety and Smith’s relative lack of belief. It is possible Smith was making this up with Laura’s collusion, but there would be no reason to invent a scenario in which Laura was praying while he lay in bed. One wonders if, when Smith was on his own on Sunday 9 December at 8.30, Laura and the servant M W were at evensong.

Suddenly, the guitar strings sounded:

pung, pang, ping – pung, pang, ping – here my wife called out in a loud, awe-struck whisper, “Did you hear that?” whilst even as she spoke a third pung, pang, ping sounded clearly through the rooms. I immediately sprang out of bed and rushed in to her, finding her kneeling upon the hearth-rug by an armchair, staring with astonishment at the guitar upon the wall.’[27]

They sat by the fire for over half an hour but no further sounds were heard. Laura said that she had been distracted a couple of times during her prayers by odd sounds, like someone sweeping a hand over the wallpaper. They now had a cat (‘an extremely lazy Persian’) but it was asleep. She said that when the guitar sounded the second and third times she was looking at it and saw no movement, nor was anything near it. The sound was not caused by the pegs slipping and a note sounding as a result. On 13 January Smith came in at about 10.30 and Laura said that the guitar had again produced a note. Smith ends this section of his diary by saying that he cannot account for the phenomenon.[28] Later a visitor, Mrs V, when alone in the sitting room, heard the guitar, not knowing it had happened before.[29]

In March, Laura’s sister ‘Miss E.B.’ [i.e. Eva] slept in the house for a week.[30] She heard raps on her door in the early hours on her first night but nothing subsequently. Smith himself slept on his own in the three bedrooms (the two guest rooms and the servant’s room) from time to time to see if anything happened, but nothing did that he noticed. Smith and Laura left the house on 27 September 1889 and a new tenant moved in the following day. There is a friendly letter to Smith in the SPR file from the new tenant dated 13 March 1890 saying that disappointingly nothing had been experienced since moving in.[31]

Alas, given the length of time this investigation took, and the number of people involved, the SPR file is rather thin and appears to have been weeded at some point. Considering that Smith’s account indicates he spent much of his time writing, very little of it seems to have been preserved. Most of the surviving material relates to the previous occupants and the intrepid trio of independent investigators, and while including much that made its way into print, with hardly anything relating to the time Smith and Laura spent there, apart from a draft of his statement. To take over a house like this for such a long period and maintain a constant presence in case phenomena occurred was groundbreaking, and it is disappointing so little of the documentation remains.


The aftermath

Here the matter rested until an article appeared in the SPR’s Journal, ‘The Journalist at Large in Psychical Research’, in April 1905, by which time Smith had long ceased to be active in the Society.[32] Noting the sensationalist aspect of many ghost-related articles in the press, the writer argues that it is worth seeing how stories develop, and describes two in which their evolution could be tracked. After disposing of the Talking Baby of Bethesda (alas deceased), the article moves on to a case which appeared in the Daily Mail the previous Christmas Eve and circulated widely, even being picked up by the foreign press. A chunk of the Mail’s article was reprinted, concerning a haunted house in Brighton where a ghost had been seen. In part it reads:

‘A gentleman well known in Brighton lived in the house with his wife and children for fifteen months. Sturdy and muscular, with a partiality for mountain-climbing as a pastime, this gentleman, who was seen by a Daily Mail representative yesterday, is certainly not the kind of man to suffer from “nerves”.[33]

‘He said that he had not seen the ghost, but a very curious thing happened in the corner of the drawing-room where the figure is said to have appeared...’ [and goes on to describe three notes being played three times on a guitar.]

The account also notes that a barrister who had watched with two friends had had a revolver, and a woman had committed suicide in the house because of a man’s cruelty.[34] The article goes on to say that the case was referred to in the Annals of Psychical Science for the preceding January. The Annals had indeed included a piece in its ‘Odds and Ends’ column, taken from newspaper accounts and beginning, ‘English newspapers have had much to say about a haunted house at Brighton the last few days,’ giving hardly any space to the experience of ‘a former tenant,’ referring briefly to a ‘gentleman and his wife’ who had occupied the house for fifteen months, and devoting most space to a lawyer who had spent a night there with two friends, his revolver, and a dog.[35] The writer in the Journal pointed out that these accounts implied that this was a recent case, but were clearly reminiscent of the one published in Proceedings back in 1889 (i.e. in Podmore’s article). Given the similarities, a letter had been sent to Smith to ask him about it, and part of his reply is printed.[36]

Addressed from his Southwick home The Laboratory, Roman Crescent, and dated 25 February 1905, it finds Smith in a sharp mood but, as with the diary kept during his tenure of the house, it helps to round him out by including a detail from his life which would not otherwise be available. He had seen the account in the Daily Mail and was not impressed with the way the story had been handled. At Christmas 1903, a reporter on a Brighton newspaper had approached him saying he was writing a ‘seasonable’ column and had a few cases of local hauntings, including the one in which Smith had been involved, which Smith was asked to verify. This duly appeared and as far as Smith was concerned was ‘substantially accurate.’ He did not think that his name was included. Then a year later it appeared again, in the Daily Mail, but so worded to make it appear to be recent, not fifteen years old. The article mentions the Mail representative having seen Smith ‘yesterday’, implying an interview, though what had happened was that the journalist had indeed ‘seen’ Smith, but across a crowded concert room with not a word passing between them; they had only nodded at each other. Smith was there ‘to see my little daughter’s calisthenics.’ The local journalist also wrote the piece for the Mail, hence knew of Smith’s involvement in the case and was recycling his copy. The JSPR article’s author added that the reference to the suicide was at odds with that given at the inquest and the reference to ‘The cruelty of a man’ was a journalistic addition.[37] The Annals duly reported that the affair was a good example of the unreliability of newspapers, as rather than being recent, the case was one that ‘has already done hard work.’[38]

Alice Johnson at the SPR had written privately to Smith, presumably to ask his opinion on the matter. He replied to her on 15 March 1905. There is again personal information, as so often with Smith only supplied in passing, and it explains a certain irritation over the matter:

‘The proprietor of the Brighton Herald is my brother-in-law, and he is much annoyed by the want of principle shown by his reports.[39] The proprietor is a genuine stickler for literacy accuracy & truth, & I should be sorry to see his paper named reprovingly as it seldom deserves it. The young reporter who dished his 12 months old article up for the Daily Mail did it entirely on his own account. His original article in the Brighton Herald was I understand based upon conversation with the witnesses. He certainly took the trouble to see me, but though I confirmed what he had heard I would not allow my name to be used.

‘Of course there is no objection to using my name in the Journal or elsewhere in SPR publications as tenant of the house...’

One final mystery of the investigation is the address given for Smith during his occupation of the Brighton house. Trevor Hall says that Smith was living at Manstone Cottage, St Lawrence, Ramsgate, in December 1888, having taken this from the list of new associates in JSPR.[40] He catalogues Smith’s movements from 1888 to 1892 but does not mention the Brighton house at all. He seems to think that Smith was living in St Lawrence: ‘it seems possible that he found it convenient to make his home with his wife’s parents for a time’ (on the sole grounds that Laura came from Ramsgate).[41]

The December 1888 membership list may have been prepared in advance, but hardly before August, when he and Laura moved into 18 Prestonville Road. The next list, dated May 1889, also falls within the period of his tenancy of the Brighton house, yet still gives his address as Manstone Cottage. And that is the address given in the Proceedings' list dated December 1890. [42] Thus while living in Brighton, the impression was given by the lists that he was in Kent. Could this have been to deflect knowledge of his involvement and help to protect the house from further notoriety?



[1] Gauld and A D Cornell, Poltergeists, 1979, p.187.
[2] Gauld, The Founders of Psychical Research, 1968, p.196.
[3] Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, Proc.SPR, Vol. 6, 1889, pp.229-313.  Podmore also gives a potted version of the case, which he numbered 29, in his 1909 Telepathic Hallucinations: The New View of Ghosts, pp.118-120.  A summary, including a description of the house’s layout and a useful tabulation of the phenomena across the witness statements, plus lengthy extracts from statements and Smith’s diary, are provided by Gauld and Cornell (Poltergeists, 1979, pp.186-195).
[4] File SPR/Lit.Com/G187: Brighton.  Gauld (Gauld and Cornell, Poltergeists, 1979, p.186), gives the name of the road but not the house number, and in his The Founders of Psychical Research, 1968, p.180, fn2, he gives both.
[5] Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, pp.256-8.  The SPR file gives her first name as Louisa.
[6] Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, p.264.
[7] Mrs G’s name, and her residence after leaving Prestonville Road, are not given in the published account, but Gurney’s unpublished notes of his interview with her in the SPR file state that her name was Mrs Gilby, and she was living at 15 Albert Road, Brighton.  A later letter to Podmore gives her first name as Clara.  Perhaps Gurney chose the Royal Albion because of its convenience to her or to Miss Morris, who was living at 14 Victoria St, Brighton.  The hotel is about a mile and a half from Prestonville Road, a mile from Albert Road and about the same from Victoria Street.  All three streets are fairly close to each other and the Royal Albion would be a good base from which to visit each.  It is reasonable to assume Gurney rather than Podmore would have visited Miss Morris had he lived.
[8] A point also made by Trevor Hamilton, Immortal Longings, 2009, p.167.  Fraser Nicol in his essay-review of Hall’s book, ‘The Silences of Mr Trevor Hall’, International Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. 8, No. 1 Winter 1966,  p.14, also refers to the haunted house investigation as a reason for Gurney to be in Brighton.
[9] The Athenaeum, 30 June, 1888, p.827, Light, 30 June, 1888.
[10] Mrs G’s narrative occupies pp. 259-264 of Podmore’s article.
[11] Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, pp.255-6.
[12] The SPR file gives Anne’s surname as Holden, and there is a statement written by her in it, giving her age as 21.
[13] Mr G’s diary extracts are on pp.264-5.  Podmore also included notes from his interview with her.  He met the two children (aged he said 9 and 11) and had a conversation with them.  In Telepathic Hallucinations he gives the ages as ‘about nine and ten,' so these may be estimates.
[14] Despite efforts used to protect the address and the identities of all involved, Podmore notes that ‘Mrs G’s experience in the house appears very quickly to have become matter of common talk in the town...’ (p.267).  The witness statements are on pp.267-268.  The SPR file identifies the gentlemen as W O Dawson, Rev. G Ousley and Mr W K Cargill.  Dawson was a barrister and Cargill a solicitor.
[15] There is a letter in the file from Cargill to Smith written in October 1889 (so just after Smith had vacated the Prestonville Road house) saying that he had no time to attend to Smith’s letter of that day’s date, suggesting he wished to distance himself from the affair.
[16] Notes written by Dawson in July 1888, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’,  p.267.
[17] Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, pp.268-9. The copy in the SPR file is in Smith’s hand.  The newspaper is the Brighton Herald.
[18] Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, pp.269-70.
[19] Lang, ‘Ghosts up to Date’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, January 1894, pp.57-8.
[20] Hamilton, Immortal Longings, 2009, p.249, dryly asks: ‘One wonders what the new Mrs Smith thought about this as an introduction to married bliss.’
[21] Gauld, Poltergeists, 1979, p.192.
[22] Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, pp.309-13, included as an appendix.  Gauld, Poltergeists, 1979, p.192, rates Smith highly as an investigator, saying of his reports that they ‘seem to me workmanlike and level-headed.’
[23] Smith puts the house at ‘10 minutes’ walk from the railway station.’  According to AA’s route finder it is 0.7 miles by road, coincidentally about the same distance as the house from St Ann’s Well gardens, where Smith later became proprietor.
[24] The SPR file identifies M W as Mattie Welles or Weller.
[25] There is an ambiguity in the wording and it is possible that Sidgwick stayed for just one night.
[26] Anne H in her account said they had been in the house nearly three weeks when her ‘mistress came to my room and called me, and said she heard someone screaming and groaning dreadfully.’  Anne went into Mrs G’s room: ‘I heard it too; I thought someone was being murdered.  It seemed in the next house to me, as if someone was being thrown about dreadfully.’  It is highly unlikely that there was a paranormal explanation for this incident either (‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, Proc.SPR, Vol. 6, p.266).
[27] The repeated use of ‘sprang’ suggests great vigour on Smith’s part which, aged 24, he may well have possessed, but the word is a conventional one and springing – particularly from bed – occurs with surprising frequency in the SPR literature.
[28] It is worth bearing in mind Ada Goodrich-Freer’s adage, writing about Ballechin House, that, ‘The fact that there are noises in a house which we have been unable to explain in no sense proves that they are unexplainable, the limitations may be ours...’ (‘Psychical Research and an Alleged “Haunted” House’ (Nineteenth Century, August 1897, p.234).
[29] Mrs V is identified in the unpublished account as Mrs Verrall and she is described as ‘Mrs Sidgwick’s friend,’ although she was to become a significant member of the SPR in her own right.
[30] The printed account (p.313) has her stay of five or six nights from 15 February, but from Smith’s diary it would appear to have been in March.
[31] The writer appears to be B. Shoesmith, but the name has been crossed through.  This was not the first letter that Shoesmith had sent to Smith as the letter begins ‘I had no idea you had left Buckingham Place [presumably referring to Buckingham Street, where the SPR’s rooms were] and would have forwarded the last letter to you direct,’ suggesting that Smith had kept tabs on the case after his departure.  The second half of the letter, expressing disappointment at not experiencing a ghost is printed in Podmore, ‘Phantasms of the Dead from Another Point of View’, p.313, and concludes Podmore’s lengthy article.
[32] JSPR, Vol. 12, pp.65-68.
[33] The reference to mountaineering is intriguing, but like other elements of the story may be journalistic licence.  The reference to children certainly is considering the short time the Smiths had been married when they moved into the house.
[34] JSPR, Vol. 12, p.67.  Presumably the barrister was W O Dawson.  There is no reference to firearms in the file.
[35] ‘Odds and Ends: A Haunted House in Brighton’, The Annals of Psychical Science, Vol. 1, 1905, p.64-5.
[36] JSPR, Vol. 12, p.68.
[37] The Annals account also referred to ‘a man’s cruelty.’
[38] ‘Odds and Ends: A Haunted House in Brighton’, Annals of Psychical Science, Vol. 1, 1905, p.269-70.
[39] William Henry Attwick, married to Smith’s sister Fanny (Hall, The Strange Case of Edmund Gurney, 1964, p.186, notes that Fanny and Attwick married, but not Attwick’s proprietorship of the Herald).
[40] JSPR, Vol. 3, p.345; Hall, The Strange Case of Edmund Gurney, 1964, p.168.
[41] Hall, The Strange Case of Edmund Gurney, 1964, p.168.
[42] Proc.SPR, Vol. 5, p.605; Proc.SPR, Vol. 6, p.695.