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Courtesy Whipple Museum, Cambridge
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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.
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Courtesy Whipple Museum, Cambridge
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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.
