Some time ago I reviewed a book called The Articulate Dead by Michael E Tymn. He had referred to Eleanor Sidgwick, a significant early figure in the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), as “Dr Sidgwick”, and I wrote that she did not have a doctorate and was always referred to as “Mrs Sidgwick”. More recently I reviewed a DVD, This Life, Next Life: Evidence for the Afterlife, by Keith Parsons, who also referred to “Dr Sidgwick”. I wondered if Keith had picked up the reference from The Articulate Dead.
Shortly afterwards I had an email from Michael Tymn saying that he had read somewhere that Eleanor Sidgwick had a doctorate, possibly an honorary one, but that would still count. He had been in touch with Keith Parsons, who said that he too had come across this information somewhere, though not in The Articulate Dead (Keith later remembered that it was in an online piece – by Mike Tymn). I was left with the question of whether Eleanor Sidgwick had achieved a doctorate, if so where from, and whether it was legitimate to refer to her as “Dr Sidgwick”, a title which she seems never to have used herself.
While she did not possess an earned doctorate, she was awarded several honorary ones later in her career, not primarily for her psychical or mathematical research but rather for her administration and efforts in promoting women’s education. The basic information is contained in the book written after her death, which occurred on 10 February 1936, Mrs. Henry Sidgwick: a Memoir by her niece Ethel Sidgwick (London: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd., 1938, pp. 165-6):
“Mrs. Sidgwick's services to Universities and to education generally, were recognised by four Honorary Degrees: the first being offered by the "Victoria" University, uniting Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. Birmingham was the second, St. Andrews the third. Her fourth degree, late but not least valued, was conferred by Edinburgh.”
Helen Fowler’s entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography refers to the honorary degrees in similar terms and is presumably drawn from the Memoir. They do not specify whether the degrees were doctorates, but it was a reasonable assumption that they were. To find out more about what kinds of degrees she was awarded, and when, I contacted all four institutions mentioned, plus Newnham College, Cambridge, with which she had had a long relationship.
Ann Thomson, archivist at Newnham, replied that the college records showed that Eleanor Sidgwick received the four honorary degrees for her services to education, and added that she had never seen Eleanor referred to as Dr Sidgwick, which would more likely have been used in connection with her husband Dr (later Professor) Henry Sidgwick. She added that in 1921 women were granted the 'title of degree' but it was not until 1948 that they were granted full membership of Cambridge University. She told me that there is no mention in the Newnham records of Eleanor Sidgwick ever taking a doctorate in her own right.
I did a search of the 'Times' online archive and indeed found that only Henry was ever referred to as ‘Dr’, never Eleanor. So what exactly were these degrees which were awarded to Mrs Sidgwick? The four institutions replied, some with more detail than others, but all supplied the basic information. To take the awards in chronological order:
The Victoria University
The Victoria University was a federal institution established in 1880, incorporating what eventually became the universities of Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. Jenny Wallwork at Manchester told me that their records showed that the Victoria University awarded Mrs Henry Sidgwick the honorary degree of Litt.D. in 1899. Ms Wallwork kindly checked the online records of the ‘Manchester Guardian’ newspaper, and said that the decision was approved by the University Court at a meeting on Thursday 22nd June, 1899. The degree ceremony was fully reported in the newspaper issue dated July 3, 1899. The full citation read out at the ceremony was included, and it stated that the degree was awarded to recognise "the varied accomplishments and the self-sacrificing devotion of the successful administrator".
Birmingham
Philippa Bassett confirmed that the University of Birmingham awarded Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick an honorary LLD in 1909. According to the minutes of University Council, a Special Degree Congregation was planned to follow the royal opening of the University’s Edgbaston buildings in July 1909, and the relevant minute book contains a printed list of persons whom the Senate wished to invite to accept the Honorary Degree of LLD: “The matter has been carefully discussed in the several Faculties, as well as at meetings of the Principals’ and Deans’ Committee and each outside name is recommended by the Faculty which contains experts in the specific subject.” Eleanor Sidgwick is listed as Mrs Sidgwick and is described as Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge. The reason for the award is not given in the Council’s minutes, and Ms Bassett concludes that the minutes of these various bodies might throw light on a more specific reason for Eleanor Sidgwick’s selection, but she did not have the resources to undertake a search of them.
It is worth adding that the Principal of the University of Birmingham from 1900 to 1919 was Sir Oliver Lodge (knighted in 1902). Lodge was a colleague of Mrs Sidgwick’s in the SPR, and it is likely that that he exercised some influence in the award of the honorary doctorate.
St Andrews
St Andrews dealt with my enquiry as a Freedom of Information request. June Weir wrote that
“ELEANOR MILDRED SIDGWICK received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws (LLD) in person at a ceremony in St Andrews as part of the Quincentenary celebrations of the University on Thursday 14 September 1911 at 1030 am. She was one of two women so honoured, amongst 86 recipients of the LLD on that occasion, the other being Louisa Innes Lumsden. Both women were pioneers in the field of the education of women. There does not seem to have been a normal laureation address, since there were so many graduates at the ceremony. Rather, a souvenir handbook was published in 1912 which contains a potted biography of the honorary graduates. Mrs Sidgwick is described as follows:
“‘74 Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick, sister of the Right Honourable A.J. Balfour and widow of Professor Henry Sidgwick, Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge from 1892-1910. Mrs Sidgwick has been closely connected with the progress of secondary Education in many ways. Most notable perhaps is her work for Newnham College for women, which owes an untold amount to her extraordinarily calm clear good sense and judgment, her great administrative ability, her generous outlook and living sympathy. For 35 years she has been, and still is, Treasurer to the College, and has had the finance practically in her hands, and it is impossible to overpraise the wise, sound, far-seeing policy, pursued by her throughout with marked success. In 1892 she became Principal, an office which she has only recently resigned, and she is now President of the Newnham Council. She was a most useful and active member of the Royal Commission on Education, the first Royal Commission on which women were appointed to sit, and has been on many Educational bodies since. Mrs Sidgwick has taken an active part in the work of the Psychical Society [i.e. the Society for Psychical Research] from its commencement and has made valuable contributions to its proceedings.’
“Her name was suggested to the University Senatus by the Honorary Degrees committee but there does not seem to be a record of who might have nominated her.”
Edinburgh
The final honorary doctorate awarded to Mrs Sidgwick was also that of LLD, significantly for her academic work as much as for her contributions to sound administration. Arnott Wilson supplied the text of a letter written by Mrs Sidgwick, as well as the relevant part of the encomium read at the ceremony.
The letter from Mrs Sidgwick, dated from Fisher's Hill, 25 March 1923, states: "I am in receipt of your letter enclosing the offer of the Senatus Academicus of the University of Edinburgh to confer on me the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws. I cannot refuse so great an honour and am much gratified that the University should consider me worthy of it. My only hesitation about replying at once has been due to the fact that at my age [she was 78] one cannot rely on the health and strength necessary for long journeys and fatiguing ceremonials some months ahead, so that element of uncertainty must accompany my acceptance".
It appears that she did manage to attend the graduation ceremony which was held on the morning of 12th July 1923, when the degree was conferred. In presenting the thirteen candidates for the honorary LLD degrees (which included Winston Churchill), the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Professor James Mackintosh, stated: "Women figure so prominently in our Ordinary list of graduands that it would almost seem invidious if they were not represented in the Honorary list as well. Fortunately, Mrs Sidgwick has seen her way to accept our invitation, and it would be hard to find a lady better entitled to University honour or more deserving of the gratitude of her sex. During her long connection with Newnham College as Principal and Bursar, she proved herself a sane and judicious leader in the movement for the Higher Education of Women. She has contributed materially to the progress of Electrical Science by the part she took in investigating the absolute values of the fundamental electrical units. In the more occult region of psychical research, she has pursued her inquiries in the same strictly scientific spirit, not without a certain measure of philosophic doubt. It adds to the warmth of our welcome that Mrs Sidgwick is a member of the brilliant family which has given us our revered Chancellor."
The “revered Chancellor” of the University was Mrs Sidgwick’s brother, Arthur Balfour, who had been appointed in 1891 and was created The Earl of Balfour in 1922.
One further source of information is Burke’s Peerage. The 96th edition of 1938, p.207, in the section devoted to the Balfour family, refers to Mrs Sidgwick as in possession of the four doctorates, which it then lists, along with the relevant institution. It does not say that these are honorary doctorates, the implication being that Burke’s is above such mundane distinctions, and one might (at a stretch) assume that Mrs Sidgwick had achieved them in a non-honorary way. The wording was essentially unchanged in the 107th edition of 2003, and it is conceivable that this has been a source of confusion.
So Eleanor Sidgwick was awarded four honorary doctorates, her tally being one Litt.D and three LLDs, but the question still remains whether this would entitle her to use the title. Who better to ask than the University of Cambridge, and I received a reply from Tim Milner, who is the University’s Ceremonial Officer. He said that there were no hard and fast rules. Within the University, a person with an Honorary Cambridge Doctorate, but not a substantive one (i.e. one for which a thesis has been submitted), might be addressed as Dr in formal and social correspondence. However, in the outside world it would be up to the recipient: “Some clearly like the style Dr, others do not. Some people think it should be used socially and formally, and others not”, he concluded. Wikipedia also distinguishes honorary from substantive degrees and says that although honorary ones are not generally considered to be of the same standing as the substantive ones, in principle the honorary ones "may be considered to have technically the same standing, and to grant the same privileges and style of address as their substantive counterparts, except where explicitly stated to the contrary".
With no fixed rules and fluid conventions regarding honorary doctorates, I have to say that Tymn and Parsons were not incorrect in referring to Eleanor as “Dr Sidgwick”, so I withdraw my criticism of the usage. However, the point remains that, as far as I have been able to establish, this was not a style used either by her, or by her contemporaries either to or about her. I suspect that while she was happy to receive the recognition for her efforts, thereby publicising the cause of women’s education, she did not consider it right to use a title more appropriate to academic achievement. She might even have considered the use, based on only an honorary award, pretentious. The irony is of course that she would have been more than able to achieve the distinction on the basis of her intellectual capacities had the times been more favourable.
As a side issue, Ann Thomson at Newnham refers to Henry as “Dr Sidgwick”, but he was in the same position as his wife, his degrees being honorary. According to his biographer, Bart Schultz, he had a number of these, from the universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Leipzig, Oxford and Budapest. He became Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy in 1883.
Eleanor Sidgwick's scrolls seem to have disappeared. In addition to Newnham, I asked Jonathan Smith at Trinity College if they were there, as its library holds some of Mrs Sidgwick’s papers, and Peter Meadows at Cambridge University Library, which houses the SPR’s archives, but drew a blank.
Acknowledgements:
In addition to the archivists mentioned, thanks are due to Alan Gauld for checking Ethel Sidgwick’s book on her aunt and to Trevor Hamilton for the relevant section of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (and for the information that before her untimely death Janet Oppenheim planned to write a full biography of Mrs/Dr Sidgwick, a project which is clearly overdue).
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Friday, 8 October 2010
The Case of the Phantom Polaroid
This article appeared in Fortean Times No 261, a special issue dated April 2010, pp.64-65. The issue had a number of articles related to photography, and included my review of Melvyn Willin’s Ghosts Caught on Film 2.
After the publication of the article I obtained a copy of Robin Foy’s monumental Witnessing the Impossible, described as “the definitive story of the Scole Experimental Group”, which contains an account of every séance it held. The session which produced the Conan Doyle image about which I had written is described on p.111 (it is unfortunate that such a large book – xvi+560pp – does not have an index, though there is an appendix listing new phenomena, with dates). It took place on Friday 13 January 1995 with the entire Scole group present.
The entry surprisingly says that two images of Conan Doyle were obtained, “one of which was clear and upright, with the other being more blurred and sideways on.” Which one is reproduced in Grant and Jane Solomon’s The Scole Experiment is unclear (they refer to the Conan Doyle picture on p.60 but do not say that there was another one). If Foy is referring to the positioning of the face, the one published would be the first, which is full face rather than in profile, and anyway it seems reasonable that they would have chosen the better of the two for publication, though it is an exaggeration to call it “clear”.
Foy reproduces exactly the same version as in the Solomons’ book as Plate 3, but does not specify which of the two it was either. Curiously the appendix merely says “Photograph of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle”, suggesting that there was only one image. As far as I am aware the other picture, if it still exists, has not been published.
The article below is as it appeared in FT, except that the published version included references within the text to previous FT articles on the Scole Experimental Group and Ted Serios, turned my own embedded references into footnotes (with TinyURL links), and put the reference to the SPR’s Scole Report as a separate “See also...”. The FT article included Gates’s painting and an enlargement of the picture in the Solomons’ book, cropping the latter slightly. The picture above is my own attempt to recreate the Scole image, manipulating the painting digitally.
Roger Straughan’s recent book A Study in Survival: Conan Doyle Solves the Final Problem mentions a Polaroid photo of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which was obtained during a séance held by the Scole Experimental Group in 1995 (Straughan, 2009, p.136). This was a circle that met for séances at Scole, Norfolk, led by Robin and Sandra Foy. Robin Foy had also formed an organisation called the Noah’s Ark Society for Physical Mediumship (NAS) in 1990.
The photograph of Conan Doyle was reproduced in The Scole Experiment by Grant and Jane Solomon (1999, opposite p53). Straughan was intrigued by it as he did not recognise the source. He asked the late Montague Keen, an investigator from the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) and co-author of an extensive report on Scole published by the SPR, if the picture had been identified by the Group. Keen said that it hadn’t. Nor was a friend of Straughan’s, who was knowledgeable about Conan Doyle and to whom he showed it, able to match it to an existing photograph.
This was significant, because if the Scole Polaroid did not correspond to a photograph of Conan Doyle taken during his lifetime, the implication was that it was a post-mortem portrait impressed on the Polaroid, and therefore evidence of Conan Doyle’s survival of death. As Straughan says: “So if fakery of any kind had been involved (as sceptics will always maintain in such cases), where did the original come from which the fake picture would have had to use?”
While reviewing Straughan’s book (Ruffles 2010), I felt that I had managed to trace the source of the Scole image, not to an existing photograph but to a painting. I thought that the original was a portrait painted in 1927 by Henry L Gates and owned by the National Portrait Gallery (NPG4115). It was not a straight copy, however, but had been manipulated by being reversed and closely cropped, converted to black and white and degraded.
I put this theory to Straughan and we had a friendly discussion during which he said that he and his colleague had considered the painting but had dismissed it as not bearing enough similarity to the Scole picture. He naturally asked me how I felt the alterations had been achieved, and I offered a suggestion, while acknowledging that manipulation, if that is what had occurred, could have been done by other means. My way would require access to a darkroom to reverse the picture.
The method I suggested to Straughan would be to take a reproduction (perhaps a postcard from the Gallery); photograph it on ordinary colour film stock which could be processed commercially; put the negative in an enlarger, but reversed; print a copy on black and white paper, which gives a low-contrast look when using a colour negative and, as the original portrait has a very dark background, there would be no tell-tale extraneous features at the edges; take a Polaroid of the print, coming in close with just the head in the frame.
The result of re-photographing the original would be a loss of detail such as the image in the Solmons' book shows. With the facilities to make prints it would be easy to do, using trial and error with the exposure and filters on the enlarger to get a satisfactory result – clear enough to show who the subject was but blurry enough to disguise the starting point. I did consider the possibility of using an acetate sheet in a photocopier, which would be simpler, but discarded the idea as it seemed likely that, if anything, the contrast would be increased rather than reduced.
I think it is fair to say that Straughan was not convinced by my hypothesis, so we agreed to disagree. And it could be argued that a discarnate Conan Doyle had utilised an existing portrait to prove his survival, impressing it on the Polaroid by paranormal means, or that one of the Scole sitters had done so, distorting a memory of the painting in the process (as Ted Serios was said to impress pictures of real yet strangely altered places on Polaroids). But the argument – that if the Polaroid does not correspond to an image of him when alive, then the case for the continuation of his personality after death is bolstered – looks weaker if an original is identified
If non-paranormal means were employed, and if the painting was the starting point, it would not have been necessary to go far for a copy. The front cover of Psychic News for 7 November 1992 carried an exposé of medium ‘Lincoln’ (Colin Fry), with the headline “Medium Caught Holding Trumpet” which began: “Shocked sitters witnessed physical medium Lincoln ‘standing in the middle of the room holding a spirit trumpet in his hand’ when the lights suddenly came on during a Noah’s Ark Society (NAS) séance last month. The séance held before an invited audience, took place at NAS chairman Robin Foy’s home in Scole, Norfolk.” (The articles can be found on tonyyouens.com.)
Next to this article is another entitled “Conan Doyle letters are auctioned”, with a picture of the man himself. This is the NPG portrait, cropped, degraded and in black and white. Someone wanting to use it as a source would have had an available image that could be re-photographed, reversed, printed and turned into a Polaroid (the Psychic News version is cropped, but the Scole picture is tighter still). A further article in Psychic News the following April stated that the NAS had carried out an investigation of the trumpet incident and still supported Fry, so they must have seen the initial front-page report, and the picture of Conan Doyle, in November.
It might be argued that this is all a lot of bother for such a meagre result, but it would be straightforward for someone experienced in a darkroom. Reversal makes it slightly more complicated than straight re-photographing but disguises the origin of the result beautifully – certainly enough to deceive a number of people familiar with pictures, including Gates’ painting, of Conan Doyle. It would be useful if other researchers were to examine the two pictures, the NPG one altered in the way I suggest, and see if they find my argument convincing.
References
Keen, Montague, Ellison, Arthur and Fontana, David, The Scole Report: An Account of an Investigation into the Genuineness of a Range of Physical Phenomena associated with a Mediumistic Group in Norfolk, England. London: Society for Psychical Research, 1999.
Psychic News, 7 November 1992, 10 April 1993.
Ruffles, Tom. Review of A Study in Survival, http://www.nthposition.com/astudyinsurvival.php, January 2010.
Solomon, Grant and Jane, The Scole Experiment: Scientific Evidence for Life After Death. London: Piatkus, 1999.
Straughan, Roger, A Study in Survival: Conan Doyle Solves the Final Problem. Ropley, Hampshire: O Books, 2009.
Youens, Tony. Articles on Noah’s Ark Society and Colin Fry in Psychic News, http://www.tonyyouens.com/psychic_news.htm.
After the publication of the article I obtained a copy of Robin Foy’s monumental Witnessing the Impossible, described as “the definitive story of the Scole Experimental Group”, which contains an account of every séance it held. The session which produced the Conan Doyle image about which I had written is described on p.111 (it is unfortunate that such a large book – xvi+560pp – does not have an index, though there is an appendix listing new phenomena, with dates). It took place on Friday 13 January 1995 with the entire Scole group present.
The entry surprisingly says that two images of Conan Doyle were obtained, “one of which was clear and upright, with the other being more blurred and sideways on.” Which one is reproduced in Grant and Jane Solomon’s The Scole Experiment is unclear (they refer to the Conan Doyle picture on p.60 but do not say that there was another one). If Foy is referring to the positioning of the face, the one published would be the first, which is full face rather than in profile, and anyway it seems reasonable that they would have chosen the better of the two for publication, though it is an exaggeration to call it “clear”.
Foy reproduces exactly the same version as in the Solomons’ book as Plate 3, but does not specify which of the two it was either. Curiously the appendix merely says “Photograph of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle”, suggesting that there was only one image. As far as I am aware the other picture, if it still exists, has not been published.
The article below is as it appeared in FT, except that the published version included references within the text to previous FT articles on the Scole Experimental Group and Ted Serios, turned my own embedded references into footnotes (with TinyURL links), and put the reference to the SPR’s Scole Report as a separate “See also...”. The FT article included Gates’s painting and an enlargement of the picture in the Solomons’ book, cropping the latter slightly. The picture above is my own attempt to recreate the Scole image, manipulating the painting digitally.
The Case of the Phantom Polaroid
Tom Ruffles offers a possible identity for a supposedly unknown image of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle obtained during a Norfolk séance.
Tom Ruffles offers a possible identity for a supposedly unknown image of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle obtained during a Norfolk séance.
Roger Straughan’s recent book A Study in Survival: Conan Doyle Solves the Final Problem mentions a Polaroid photo of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which was obtained during a séance held by the Scole Experimental Group in 1995 (Straughan, 2009, p.136). This was a circle that met for séances at Scole, Norfolk, led by Robin and Sandra Foy. Robin Foy had also formed an organisation called the Noah’s Ark Society for Physical Mediumship (NAS) in 1990.
The photograph of Conan Doyle was reproduced in The Scole Experiment by Grant and Jane Solomon (1999, opposite p53). Straughan was intrigued by it as he did not recognise the source. He asked the late Montague Keen, an investigator from the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) and co-author of an extensive report on Scole published by the SPR, if the picture had been identified by the Group. Keen said that it hadn’t. Nor was a friend of Straughan’s, who was knowledgeable about Conan Doyle and to whom he showed it, able to match it to an existing photograph.
This was significant, because if the Scole Polaroid did not correspond to a photograph of Conan Doyle taken during his lifetime, the implication was that it was a post-mortem portrait impressed on the Polaroid, and therefore evidence of Conan Doyle’s survival of death. As Straughan says: “So if fakery of any kind had been involved (as sceptics will always maintain in such cases), where did the original come from which the fake picture would have had to use?”
While reviewing Straughan’s book (Ruffles 2010), I felt that I had managed to trace the source of the Scole image, not to an existing photograph but to a painting. I thought that the original was a portrait painted in 1927 by Henry L Gates and owned by the National Portrait Gallery (NPG4115). It was not a straight copy, however, but had been manipulated by being reversed and closely cropped, converted to black and white and degraded.
I put this theory to Straughan and we had a friendly discussion during which he said that he and his colleague had considered the painting but had dismissed it as not bearing enough similarity to the Scole picture. He naturally asked me how I felt the alterations had been achieved, and I offered a suggestion, while acknowledging that manipulation, if that is what had occurred, could have been done by other means. My way would require access to a darkroom to reverse the picture.
The method I suggested to Straughan would be to take a reproduction (perhaps a postcard from the Gallery); photograph it on ordinary colour film stock which could be processed commercially; put the negative in an enlarger, but reversed; print a copy on black and white paper, which gives a low-contrast look when using a colour negative and, as the original portrait has a very dark background, there would be no tell-tale extraneous features at the edges; take a Polaroid of the print, coming in close with just the head in the frame.
The result of re-photographing the original would be a loss of detail such as the image in the Solmons' book shows. With the facilities to make prints it would be easy to do, using trial and error with the exposure and filters on the enlarger to get a satisfactory result – clear enough to show who the subject was but blurry enough to disguise the starting point. I did consider the possibility of using an acetate sheet in a photocopier, which would be simpler, but discarded the idea as it seemed likely that, if anything, the contrast would be increased rather than reduced.
I think it is fair to say that Straughan was not convinced by my hypothesis, so we agreed to disagree. And it could be argued that a discarnate Conan Doyle had utilised an existing portrait to prove his survival, impressing it on the Polaroid by paranormal means, or that one of the Scole sitters had done so, distorting a memory of the painting in the process (as Ted Serios was said to impress pictures of real yet strangely altered places on Polaroids). But the argument – that if the Polaroid does not correspond to an image of him when alive, then the case for the continuation of his personality after death is bolstered – looks weaker if an original is identified
If non-paranormal means were employed, and if the painting was the starting point, it would not have been necessary to go far for a copy. The front cover of Psychic News for 7 November 1992 carried an exposé of medium ‘Lincoln’ (Colin Fry), with the headline “Medium Caught Holding Trumpet” which began: “Shocked sitters witnessed physical medium Lincoln ‘standing in the middle of the room holding a spirit trumpet in his hand’ when the lights suddenly came on during a Noah’s Ark Society (NAS) séance last month. The séance held before an invited audience, took place at NAS chairman Robin Foy’s home in Scole, Norfolk.” (The articles can be found on tonyyouens.com.)
Next to this article is another entitled “Conan Doyle letters are auctioned”, with a picture of the man himself. This is the NPG portrait, cropped, degraded and in black and white. Someone wanting to use it as a source would have had an available image that could be re-photographed, reversed, printed and turned into a Polaroid (the Psychic News version is cropped, but the Scole picture is tighter still). A further article in Psychic News the following April stated that the NAS had carried out an investigation of the trumpet incident and still supported Fry, so they must have seen the initial front-page report, and the picture of Conan Doyle, in November.
It might be argued that this is all a lot of bother for such a meagre result, but it would be straightforward for someone experienced in a darkroom. Reversal makes it slightly more complicated than straight re-photographing but disguises the origin of the result beautifully – certainly enough to deceive a number of people familiar with pictures, including Gates’ painting, of Conan Doyle. It would be useful if other researchers were to examine the two pictures, the NPG one altered in the way I suggest, and see if they find my argument convincing.
References
Keen, Montague, Ellison, Arthur and Fontana, David, The Scole Report: An Account of an Investigation into the Genuineness of a Range of Physical Phenomena associated with a Mediumistic Group in Norfolk, England. London: Society for Psychical Research, 1999.
Psychic News, 7 November 1992, 10 April 1993.
Ruffles, Tom. Review of A Study in Survival, http://www.nthposition.com/astudyinsurvival.php, January 2010.
Solomon, Grant and Jane, The Scole Experiment: Scientific Evidence for Life After Death. London: Piatkus, 1999.
Straughan, Roger, A Study in Survival: Conan Doyle Solves the Final Problem. Ropley, Hampshire: O Books, 2009.
Youens, Tony. Articles on Noah’s Ark Society and Colin Fry in Psychic News, http://www.tonyyouens.com/psychic_news.htm.
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Jack the Ripper: The Casebook - A review
Jack the Ripper: The Casebook, by Richard Jones
In a crowded marketplace even the keenest student of Jack the Ripper has to ask if yet another book is worth adding to the groaning shelf devoted to those bloody weeks in the autumn of 1888. The answer in this case is an equivocal yes - not for the text, which is basic, but for the facsimile documents that put me in mind of the old Jackdaw folders, information combined with replicas of contemporary papers.
The writing is straightforward and presented in a logical sequence, starting with a brief overview of social conditions in London’s East End, the economically precarious nature of life in which created a large population of prostitutes, and a tendency to scapegoat the influx of Jews escaping pogroms in Eastern Europe. Brief descriptions of the major police personnel involved in the investigation are followed by accounts of what are generally regarded as those killings attributed to the Ripper, set in the wider context of Whitechapel murder.
Interspersed in the descriptions of the deaths are sections recounting the police investigation and the growing anxiety of the local population. Jones sketches in the backgrounds of Mary Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Kelly, rather than leaving them as semi-anonymous bit-players in the drama. A section asks if the Ripper possessed medical knowledge, another examines the murders as a catalyst for social reform.
Individuals suspected at the time are described, along with weaknesses in the evidence against them, as are those who have come under suspicion in more recent years, such as Patricia Cornwell‘s allegations against Walter Sickert, the’ James Maybrick’ diary, and Francis Tumblety. The Royal family and freemasons get their name checks and are promptly exonerated. Very brief overviews of why the police didn’t catch the Ripper, the ambivalent attitudes of the press and what the area looks like now round things off.
With the foregoing are eighteen contemporary documents, each keyed in to the relevant section. These range from reports on the individual murders, some of the various cards and letters sent to the police in the name of Jack, a handbill, to newspaper reports, including a page from the ‘Illustrated Police News’, the date of which is not given (6 October).
The book’s presentation is gimmicky, glossy paper with fake stains and fingerprints, sidebars made to look like newspaper clippings, with pretend staples or paperclips to give the impression that the reader is perusing the original file, and therefore closer to the experience of what it would be like to handle original paperwork. The ‘stains’ give the pages a magazine feel, and are similar in style to the presentation of ‘Ghost Voices’ magazine: lavishly illustrated, short bursts of easily-digestible prose, the whole given a distressed veneer with stains and marks for atmosphere (though the Casebook‘s pages are always legible despite the treatment).
The photographs, which take up about half of the space, are generally well chosen but occasionally there is a sense that the picture editor was struggling to find something relevant to the topic. The cover should have had a warning that some of the post-mortem illustrations are graphic.
The book is fine as far as it goes but feels like an opportunity lost. Jones knows the material and has produced a good primer which will help to orient the reader new to the subject. But many enthusiasts buying the book for the documents will find the text perfunctory; at only 64 pages, all the sections are given only a double-page spread which means that nothing can be covered in depth.
Yet the documents themselves are of limited value as they are hard to read. Transcripts would have helped enormously, as it is very few will manage to plough through all the reports. Also, the documents are housed in very flimsy pockets which are delicate and will crease and tear with anything other than light use. The package has a natty magnetised flap to close it, which presumably is designed to hold the pockets in place when the book is shelved so that the weight of the contents does not weaken them.
The overall impression of the Casebook is that it is elegant and beautifully designed, but not functional, to be admired rather than used as a research tool. Really, there is no need to have physical copies of the documents, as full-colour illustrations would have served just as well. Jack the Ripper: Letters from Hell by Stewart P Evans and Keith Skinner managed to combine colour illustrations (and more clearly than Jones’s facsimiles, which have lost some definition in the reproduction) with transcriptions, making it a model of its kind.
Jones has produced a clear introduction to the case and the issues it throws up, but it does not, provide, as the introduction claims, “everything you need to understand and launch your own investigation into the mystery of Jack the Ripper”. The would-be Ripperologist needs rather more than these materials allow to be able to do that.
Jack the Ripper: The Casebook, by Richard Jones. Andre Deutsch, 2008.
In a crowded marketplace even the keenest student of Jack the Ripper has to ask if yet another book is worth adding to the groaning shelf devoted to those bloody weeks in the autumn of 1888. The answer in this case is an equivocal yes - not for the text, which is basic, but for the facsimile documents that put me in mind of the old Jackdaw folders, information combined with replicas of contemporary papers.
The writing is straightforward and presented in a logical sequence, starting with a brief overview of social conditions in London’s East End, the economically precarious nature of life in which created a large population of prostitutes, and a tendency to scapegoat the influx of Jews escaping pogroms in Eastern Europe. Brief descriptions of the major police personnel involved in the investigation are followed by accounts of what are generally regarded as those killings attributed to the Ripper, set in the wider context of Whitechapel murder.
Interspersed in the descriptions of the deaths are sections recounting the police investigation and the growing anxiety of the local population. Jones sketches in the backgrounds of Mary Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Kelly, rather than leaving them as semi-anonymous bit-players in the drama. A section asks if the Ripper possessed medical knowledge, another examines the murders as a catalyst for social reform.
Individuals suspected at the time are described, along with weaknesses in the evidence against them, as are those who have come under suspicion in more recent years, such as Patricia Cornwell‘s allegations against Walter Sickert, the’ James Maybrick’ diary, and Francis Tumblety. The Royal family and freemasons get their name checks and are promptly exonerated. Very brief overviews of why the police didn’t catch the Ripper, the ambivalent attitudes of the press and what the area looks like now round things off.
With the foregoing are eighteen contemporary documents, each keyed in to the relevant section. These range from reports on the individual murders, some of the various cards and letters sent to the police in the name of Jack, a handbill, to newspaper reports, including a page from the ‘Illustrated Police News’, the date of which is not given (6 October).
The book’s presentation is gimmicky, glossy paper with fake stains and fingerprints, sidebars made to look like newspaper clippings, with pretend staples or paperclips to give the impression that the reader is perusing the original file, and therefore closer to the experience of what it would be like to handle original paperwork. The ‘stains’ give the pages a magazine feel, and are similar in style to the presentation of ‘Ghost Voices’ magazine: lavishly illustrated, short bursts of easily-digestible prose, the whole given a distressed veneer with stains and marks for atmosphere (though the Casebook‘s pages are always legible despite the treatment).
The photographs, which take up about half of the space, are generally well chosen but occasionally there is a sense that the picture editor was struggling to find something relevant to the topic. The cover should have had a warning that some of the post-mortem illustrations are graphic.
The book is fine as far as it goes but feels like an opportunity lost. Jones knows the material and has produced a good primer which will help to orient the reader new to the subject. But many enthusiasts buying the book for the documents will find the text perfunctory; at only 64 pages, all the sections are given only a double-page spread which means that nothing can be covered in depth.
Yet the documents themselves are of limited value as they are hard to read. Transcripts would have helped enormously, as it is very few will manage to plough through all the reports. Also, the documents are housed in very flimsy pockets which are delicate and will crease and tear with anything other than light use. The package has a natty magnetised flap to close it, which presumably is designed to hold the pockets in place when the book is shelved so that the weight of the contents does not weaken them.
The overall impression of the Casebook is that it is elegant and beautifully designed, but not functional, to be admired rather than used as a research tool. Really, there is no need to have physical copies of the documents, as full-colour illustrations would have served just as well. Jack the Ripper: Letters from Hell by Stewart P Evans and Keith Skinner managed to combine colour illustrations (and more clearly than Jones’s facsimiles, which have lost some definition in the reproduction) with transcriptions, making it a model of its kind.
Jones has produced a clear introduction to the case and the issues it throws up, but it does not, provide, as the introduction claims, “everything you need to understand and launch your own investigation into the mystery of Jack the Ripper”. The would-be Ripperologist needs rather more than these materials allow to be able to do that.
Jack the Ripper: The Casebook, by Richard Jones. Andre Deutsch, 2008.
Friday, 27 August 2010
Displaying the Paranormal
The following article
appeared in Fortean Times, No 229,
November 2007, pp.38-41. It supported ‘Harry
Price Investigates’, a spin-off article by Richard Morris, who had recently written
a biography of Price. Morris also
contributed sidebars on Borley and Rudi Schneider, plus a further article on
ectoplasm. My title was reduced to
‘Displaying the Paranormal’, and some minor alterations of punctuation and
wording were made (most notably the deletion of the reference to Of Monsters and Miracles, though I did
refer to this event in a follow-up letter replying to some silliness by Morris,
who was keen to keep plugging his book). The editor inserted a sub-heading: “In
1925, Harry Price opened a remarkable event in London – a public display of
spirit photographs, automatic writing, apports and more. TOM RUFFLES tells the story of the Exhibition
of Objects of Psychic Interest.” It
appears here as submitted.
Displaying the Paranormal: The Exhibition of
Objects of Psychic Interest
Readers of this
magazine may remember the exhibition of Fortean objects, Of Monsters and Miracles, held at Croydon Clocktower in 1995. It had an antecedent seventy years before in
an even more ambitious enterprise staged at Caxton Hall on 20 and 21 May 1925. Boasting a slightly less snappy title than
the F.T. version, the Exhibition of
Objects of Psychic Interest contained a large quantity of items with a
paranormal element – almost 1,300 according to the catalogue produced to
accompany it, or “many thousands” in the illustrated report which appeared in
the July issue of the Journal of the
American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR).1 The exhibition aroused a great deal of
interest at a time, less than seven years after the end of the Great War, when
Spiritualism was flourishing.
The idea originated
with J.S. Jensen, president of the Danish Psykisk
Oplysnings Forening, the Society for the Promotion of Psychic
Knowledge. He had been collecting
objects related to the subject for some years, and had eventually gathered
enough material for an exhibition in Copenhagen in January 1925. Psychical researcher (and self-publicist)
Harry Price was invited open it.
Price had been a
last-minute replacement for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who had originally accepted
an invitation to lecture in Denmark . Unfortunately, according to Price’s later
account in Search for Truth, shortly
before Conan Doyle was due to leave he had attended a séance at which he was
warned by the spirit world that the trip might prove injurious to his health,
and he had cried off. Price went in his
stead, and the visit was a great success, especially the catering. Jensen suggested that the exhibition might
travel to London ,
and, impressed by the idea, Price agreed to make arrangements.
He needed a venue, and
fortunately the London Spiritualist Alliance (LSA, later the College of Psychic Studies
This was useful for
Price because in March he floated the idea of a National Laboratory of
Psychical Research, for which he required a home. He had used rooms at the LSA’s premises in
Queen Square previously, but he had ambitions for a much grander research
facility, and it made sense to cohabit with the LSA. One problem, though, was Price’s ambivalent
relationship with Conan Doyle who, being the most prominent exponent of
Spiritualism in the country, had a great deal of leverage with the LSA. Price’s efforts to organise the proposed exhibition,
thereby boosting the profile of the LSA’s bazaar, would provide him with an
advantage in his negotiations with them.
The LSA Council
announced the exhibition in its publication Light
on 18 April 1925, and launched an appeal for loans to supplement Jensen’s
collection, which was to be brought to London
in its entirety. Lenders were asked to
supply a statement giving the background to the object, plus “the signatures of
those able to testify to its genuineness.”
Given that there was only a month to the opening, the organisers did
well to obtain the amount they did.
However, the bulk of the display – items 1 to 1,109 – was made up of Jensen’s
material mounted on panels. These, with
objects gathered in Britain, filled Caxton Hall’s main space, two further rooms
and a gallery, totalling, according to Price’s estimate, about 5,000sq ft.
The 36-page catalogue
emphasised the breadth of a collection “illustrating the history, literature
and development of Spiritualism and psychical Research from the period of
Mesmer (1778) to the present day.” In
the foreword, Price warned that a guarantee could not be given that all objects
were genuine, and referred to “fraud, folly, self-deception” and “credulous
owners.” He stressed that no selection
to “segregate the sheep from the goats” had taken place on the grounds that
“the investigator does not yet know what is, or is not, psychic fraud.”2 Despite this caveat, he concluded that “No
one – however sceptical – can regard the mass of material brought together at
this Exhibition without coming to the conclusion that there is a strong prima facie case for very serious
investigation and scientific research.
The observer who will not admit this is
not honest” (italics in original).
On show was a
selection of books, portraits of mediums and Spiritualist leaders, and
“relics”, including Kate Fox’s marriage certificate which, along with pictures
of the Fox sisters, harked back to the origins of Spiritualism in 1848. There were examples of trance drawings and
automatic writing, including texts dictated by Solon, Bishop Wilberforce,
Plato, Seneca and Beethoven. Captain
Bartlett, drawing in semi-trance as John Alleyne, presented eight pastels of
Glastonbury Abbey as he envisioned it to have looked in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. There were a number
of notebooks and drawings which had belonged to William Stainton Moses, one of
the founders of the LSA, and various apports (objects transported by paranormal
means into the séance room), including a pair of polecat tails and a wreath of
leaves from Summerland.
There were many spirit
photographs on display, including examples taken by Ada Emma Deane (who had
been exposed by The Daily Sketch the
previous year), Harry Blackwell, Robert Boursnell, William Hope’s Crewe Circle
(investigated by Price in 1922 with ambiguous results), and Édouard Isidore Buguet, who had confessed to fraud – but later retracted – in 1875. Conan Doyle’s 85 spirit ‘Garscadden’ photographs
had an area to themselves. (By 1942, twelve years after Sir Arthur’s death,
Price felt brave enough to dismiss the “large collection, every one of which
was, apparently, a fake! Poor, dear,
lovable, credulous Doyle”; a verdict curiously absent from Price’s report
compiled while Doyle was still corporeal.)
American medium ‘Margery’ (Mina Crandon), “whose phenomena are the
wonder of the civilised world” according to the catalogue, was represented by
two photographs. One section was devoted
to what the catalogue described as fake photographs, the implication being that
all the others were genuine: “Anti-Spiritualistic experiments by Faustinus,
Marriott and Rinn.”
Slates used by the
medium Henry Slade were shown, as was his table, the catalogue noting that it
had been “described by [John Neville] Maskelyne as a ‘Trick Table’ in the
prosecution of Slade.” This piece of
furniture had been used in experiments by Price with the medium Stella C.
(Dorothy Stella Cranshaw) at Queen Square in 1923, and then by the LSA as a
packing table.3 There were
mementos of Madame d’Espérance and records of sittings with a large number of
mediums, including Slade, D.D. Home, Florence Cook, Kathleen Goligher, Stainton
Moses, Eusapia Palladino, and Mrs Guppy “of aerial transit fame”, i.e. she was
said to have teleported across London
in 1871. Captain Pearse’s trance drawing
of Elsie Cameron, who was killed in December 1924, and which was said to have
been drawn two days before the crime was uncovered, drew a great deal of prurient
interest in a
case that had achieved notoriety as the Crowborough Chicken Farm Murder
A number of people
well known in the field were on hand to explain the significance of the
exhibits to visitors. Among these was
Price who, with J.S. Jensen’s son, held sway over the Copenhagen material, as well as his own loans
and artefacts associated with Stella C.
Bligh Bond was present to explain the Glastonbury scripts and drawings,
and Conan Doyle did the same for his collection. Dr Abraham Wallace showed lantern slides of
the pioneers at work, and Blackwell discussed his spirit photographs.
A private view was
held on the afternoon of 19 May, mainly for the press, and according to Light the resulting publicity attracted
many non-Spiritualists. Notwithstanding
the organisers’ impression that the press was entirely sympathetic, the
sceptical Daily Sketch of 20 May
declared it to be the “queerest exhibition ever held in London” and felt
obliged to mention two spirits that had been photographed in a semi-nude state. It explained the pair’s unfortunate condition
thus: he had been an athlete while she
had given herself up to pleasure, and both, having neglected to attend to
spiritual matters while alive, were now unable to “weave” spirit robes on the
other side.
However, the dailies
were, on the whole, respectful in tone.
All were primarily fascinated by plaster casts of spirit hands
(‘pseudopods’) loaned by the British
College
There was a decidedly
Society component to the affair. The
first day was opened by Sybil Viscountess Rhondda, and the second by Susan
Countess of Malmesbury and Viscountess Molesworth. Conan Doyle made introductory remarks on both
occasions. As well as the exhibition,
there were stalls selling good quality bric a brac, an auction, concerts and
variety shows, and “seers” who, in the words of Light’s advance publicity, would “exercise their various gifts to
amuse, and perhaps enlighten, visitors for a few quiet minutes away from the
bustle of buying and of viewing exhibits…”
There were a number of
curious occurrences during the two days, such as Iltyd B. Nicholl, who claimed
that he was a frequent target for apports, being struck on the shoe by a safety
pin while walking up some stairs with Price.
Price picked it up and declared that it felt warm, though tactfully not
that it was the same sort of warmth which would have arisen from it being kept
in a pocket. Another apport, “in the
shape of an African native’s leather apron” arrived “especially for the
Exhibition.” As the description of these
wonders occurs in the same paragraph in the ASPR article in which Price warns
of folly and self-deception, one can assume he is being tongue-in-cheek.4
Attendance was
excellent, with £850 changing hands according to the ASPR Journal account (“nearly £1,000” in Search for Truth), which amounted to £600 profit. The article goes on to state that many
well-known people attended, including “everyone in the psychic world”, notably
the “late Sir William Barrett”, although it does not add that he was pre-mortem
at the time.
Light declared the event a resounding success, giving it extensive
coverage. There were a number of reviews
in its 30 May issue, concluding that the bazaar, fête and exhibition would
“leave a shining mark in the annals of our subject.” They noted that Kluski’s casts, Captain
Bartlett’s drawings and Conan Doyle’s photographs had attracted particular
attention, though in the last-mentioned case whether that was because of the
attraction of the pictures themselves or because the creator of Sherlock Holmes
was present to discuss them is open to question.
The success of the
exhibition oiled Price’s relationship with the LSA, which agreed that his
National Laboratory of Psychical Research could occupy the top floor of its new
premises in 16 Queensberry Place to which it moved later in the year, and the
laboratory duly opened on 1 January 1926.
Conan Doyle, though, continued to blow hot and cold in his relationship
with Price, and the intermittent antagonism seems to have caused the LSA some
embarrassment, caught as it was in the crossfire between the pair.
Price, foreseeing the
exhibition’s success, suggested in the catalogue’s foreword that it should form
the nucleus of a permanent museum, and in his ASPR Journal report stated that it had been decided to restage the
exhibition. In a note in the October
1925 Journal he mentioned that Conan
Doyle had acted on his suggestion by mounting a display of objects associated
with Spiritualism in the basement of his psychic bookshop that could be viewed
for a shilling.
Price, perhaps not to
be outdone by his rival, also announced that the Council of the National
Laboratory had decided to found a museum which would show items he had been
collecting for the purpose. And indeed,
Paul Tabori in his biography of Price mentions that Jensen sent material for a
display at the Laboratory, of which he became an honorary corresponding member.
While the exhibition
was undoubtedly fascinating, Price’s triumphant echoing of a newspaper verdict
that it had been “the most wonderful exhibition ever held in London” seems
peculiar given that as he wrote, over in Wembley the British Empire Exhibition
was in full swing, having opened in April 1924, and finally closing in October
1925.5 Perhaps Price felt
that the doings of the spirit realm were more wonderful than those of empire
builders...
Footnotes:
1 Although
unsigned, the Journal article was
written by Harry Price. It formed the basis
for the chapter entitled ‘A Unique Exhibition’, in Price’s Search for Truth. Price was
the ASPR’s ‘Foreign Research Officer’.
2 One feels that Price, with his first-hand
knowledge of the field, would have had a good idea of what was fraudulent. The verdict in Search for Truth was not so even-handed, adopting a sneering tone.
3 It now
resides in the President’s office at the College of Psychic Studies.
4 In the
ASPR account the gentleman remains anonymous and is identified by name only in Search for Truth, by which time he was
presumably dead.
5 One of
the Light reviews refers to the
Caxton Hall display as a “Wembley” of psychic exhibits.
Further reading:
[Harry Price], ‘The
Psychic Exhibition’, Journal of the
American Society for Psychical Research, July 1925, pp382-386.
Harry Price, Search for Truth – My Life for Psychical
Research, Collins, London ,
1942.
Paul Tabori, Harry Price: Ghost Hunter, The Athenæum
Press, London ,
1950.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks are due to Dr
Julia C Walworth, Head of Historic Collections at the University of London
Library, for producing the exhibition catalogue from the Harry Price Collection
(gone, alas, are the days when one could look for oneself); and especially to
Kay MacCauley, General Administrator of The College of Psychic Studies, for
delving into back issues of Light.
Course Works
This article appeared in the readers’ views column at the back of Amateur Photographer, 30 October 1999, p.106, under the title ‘Course works’. The darkroom references give it an air of nostalgia, and I still recall fondly messing around with tests strips and the magic, which never palled, of putting the paper in the developer and seeing an image emerge. It’s a sensation you just don’t get with Photoshop. Alas when I tried to book up for the next module I found the course full, then I moved, then digital came along. It is good though that there is still an interest in old processes. I recently decided to part with my film cameras (including the Pentax Super-A referred to in the article) and lenses, and donated them to my local charity shop. A lady picked them up eagerly for her daughter, telling me that the students at the village college had a darkroom and were avid users of film cameras. It’s nice to think that old techniques survive alongside new ones, and that future generations will experience the pleasure of the real – as opposed to the digital – darkroom.
For years I, like many other amateur snappers, did not particularly consider what went on between pressing the button on the top of my automatic camera and getting the packet of photos through the post. The most technical thing I ever did was press '+2' when there was a lot of sky in the frame. I enjoyed taking pictures, and tried to improve my composition - I even asked for a roll of black and white film one birthday so that I could try some arty shots - but something was lacking, as I realised when I compared my efforts to work in magazines.
Help was needed if I wanted to create something more than a record of family life. There was nothing for it but to enrol in an evening class, and I discovered that my local FE college had a decent photographic department. Armed with a second-hand Pentax Super-A, I enrolled on a City and Guilds course, where I knew that I would be mixing with other mature students. My original aim was to pick up a few tips about technique, and the theoretical sessions went a long way towards giving me the confidence to take more than random snaps. We were also able to try out the well-equipped studio, which was interesting, and not something I would have done otherwise.
After a term we moved into the darkroom to do black and white processing and printing. What a revelation that was. For the first time I could control the sequence from raw material (bulk film for economy) through to final image. I was no longer reliant on a machine and an anonymous operator. If I mucked it up (which I frequently did) I had nobody else to blame.
Perhaps it was something in the chemicals, but I found the process addictive, as I suspect many of my colleagues did, judging by the number that came in early, worked like demons, and left as late as possible. People did drop out: some decided that a camera club would be more suitable for their level of aspiration, others lacked patience and could not get the hang of the technical aspects. But most stuck with it, and we learned together. Well before the end of the year I knew I wanted to do the other modules.
What have I learned so far? For a start, the considerations involved in taking good photographs, and in the darkroom how to try variations on a theme to obtain the best effect. There is something incredibly satisfying about manipulating an image for optimum impact, and I never tire of seeing the picture magically appear in the developer, faint at first, then stronger and stronger. The materials are fairly cheap, so if an idea does not work, not much has been lost, and the syllabus provides a framework so that the experimentation has a goal.
OK, I'm not an expert by any means, but there is a sense of satisfaction in having a go which is denied to those who send off their films in an envelope or drop them off at a high street processor. So if you haven't previously considered it, find out about a class. The mix of the teaching staff's expertise, mutual assistance (and friendly rivalry) with the other students, and access to facilities denied to the average amateur, will give you confidence to take better pictures. It's definitely a worthwhile investment.
For years I, like many other amateur snappers, did not particularly consider what went on between pressing the button on the top of my automatic camera and getting the packet of photos through the post. The most technical thing I ever did was press '+2' when there was a lot of sky in the frame. I enjoyed taking pictures, and tried to improve my composition - I even asked for a roll of black and white film one birthday so that I could try some arty shots - but something was lacking, as I realised when I compared my efforts to work in magazines.
Help was needed if I wanted to create something more than a record of family life. There was nothing for it but to enrol in an evening class, and I discovered that my local FE college had a decent photographic department. Armed with a second-hand Pentax Super-A, I enrolled on a City and Guilds course, where I knew that I would be mixing with other mature students. My original aim was to pick up a few tips about technique, and the theoretical sessions went a long way towards giving me the confidence to take more than random snaps. We were also able to try out the well-equipped studio, which was interesting, and not something I would have done otherwise.
After a term we moved into the darkroom to do black and white processing and printing. What a revelation that was. For the first time I could control the sequence from raw material (bulk film for economy) through to final image. I was no longer reliant on a machine and an anonymous operator. If I mucked it up (which I frequently did) I had nobody else to blame.
Perhaps it was something in the chemicals, but I found the process addictive, as I suspect many of my colleagues did, judging by the number that came in early, worked like demons, and left as late as possible. People did drop out: some decided that a camera club would be more suitable for their level of aspiration, others lacked patience and could not get the hang of the technical aspects. But most stuck with it, and we learned together. Well before the end of the year I knew I wanted to do the other modules.
What have I learned so far? For a start, the considerations involved in taking good photographs, and in the darkroom how to try variations on a theme to obtain the best effect. There is something incredibly satisfying about manipulating an image for optimum impact, and I never tire of seeing the picture magically appear in the developer, faint at first, then stronger and stronger. The materials are fairly cheap, so if an idea does not work, not much has been lost, and the syllabus provides a framework so that the experimentation has a goal.
OK, I'm not an expert by any means, but there is a sense of satisfaction in having a go which is denied to those who send off their films in an envelope or drop them off at a high street processor. So if you haven't previously considered it, find out about a class. The mix of the teaching staff's expertise, mutual assistance (and friendly rivalry) with the other students, and access to facilities denied to the average amateur, will give you confidence to take better pictures. It's definitely a worthwhile investment.
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