 |
William Hope (Crewe, England,
1863-1933)
Rev. Charles L. Tweedale and Mrs. Tweedale with the Spirit Form of the
late F. Burnett
Brown-toned silver print, 3 x 3.5 inches
Sept. 5, 1919
Inscribed on verso: "The Rev. Charles L. Tweedale and Mrs. Tweedale
with the spirit -form of the late F. Burnett who died in 1913. Taken
under good test conditions Sept. 5th 1919."
Rev. Tweedale, an Anglican minister, was a leading voice for
spiritualism in Britain. As the Vicar of Weston in Yorkshire, he and
his wife lived in a vicarage that was described as a "much-haunted
house." Rev. Tweedale was the author of the books Man's Survival After
Death (1909) and News from the Next World (1940). He also wrote a work
defending spirit photography and the maker of this photograph, The
Vindication of William Hope.
The "extra" shown is that of Rev. Tweedale's father-in-law, who was
supposedly never photographed in life with a beard except when wearing
his hat. That fact was considered evidence of the supernatural origin
of this image.
William Hope was a carpenter who began taking spirit photographs in
1905. A group of six friends became affiliated with him for the
purposes of sitting for psychic photographs, and this organization
became known as the "Crewe Circle."
An investigator named Harry Price, using secretly marked plates,
exposed Hope as a fraud in 1922. Price's report, in the Journal of the
Society for Psychic Research, cited evidence that Hope surreptitiously
substituted negatives that had been pre-exposed to "ghost" images.
|
