Harry Price (17 January 1881 – 29 March 1948) was a British psychic researcher and author, who gained public prominence for his investigations into psychical phenomena and exposing fraudulent spiritualist mediums. He is best known for his well-publicised investigation of the purportedly haunted Borley Rectory in Essex, England.
Early life Although Price claimed his birth was in Shropshire he was actually born in London in Red Lion Square on the site of the South Place Ethical Society's Conway Hall.Harry Price: The Psychic Detective by Richard Morris, Stroud, 2006Hall (1978) pp. 25–30 He was the only son and second child of Edward Ditcher Price (1834–1906), then traveller (salesman) for the paper manufacturing firm of Edward Saunders and Son, and his wife Emma Randall nee Meech (1860–1902).Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 45, publisher Oxford University Press (2004), p.291, article by John L. Randall. His father being born at Rodington in Shropshire, Price spent much time in the county in holidays with relatives. He was educated in New Cross, first at Waller Road Infants School and then Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham Boys' School.Morris (2006) He completed his education at Goldsmiths College, studying chemistry and photography, as well as electrical and mechanical engineering. In Who's Who, he claimed to have been educated in Shropshire as well as London but did not name his schools.
At 15, Price founded the Carlton Dramatic SocietyTabori (1950) p. 22 and wrote plays, including a drama, about his early experience with a poltergeistThe Sceptic, performed 2 December 1898 at Amersham Hall which he said took place at a haunted unnamed manor house in Shropshire.Tabori (1950) p. 25
According to Richard Morris, in his biography Harry Price: The Psychic Detective (2006), Price came to the attention of the press when he claimed an early interest in space-telegraphy. He set up a receiver and transmitter between Telegraph Hill, Lewisham and St Peter's Church Brockley and captured a spark on a photographic plate. This, though, was nothing more than Price writing a press release saying he had performed the experiment, as nothing was verified.
The young Price also had an avid interest in coin collecting and wrote several articles for The Askean, the magazine for Haberdashers' School. In his autobiography, Search for Truth, written between 1941 and 1942, Price claimed he was involved with archaeological excavations in Greenwich Park, London, but, in earlier writings on Greenwich, he denied any such involvement.Hall (1978) pp. 102–113 He also claimed to have uncovered Roman coins while earlier excavating at the site of Uriconium in Wroxeter, Shropshire. From 1902 to 1904 he serialised an article on "Shropshire Tokens and Mints" in the Wellington Journal and Shrewsbury News, at age 21 published his first book, on The Coins of Kent, and served as honorary curator of numismatics at Ripon Museum, North Yorkshire, in 1904.Shropshire Magazine, article by Kenneth G. Kinrade, "The Life Story of a Shropshire "Ghost Hunter", part 1, September 1954, p.20.
From around May 1908 Price continued his interest in archaeology at Pulborough, Sussex, where he had moved prior to marrying Constance Mary Knight, only daughter of Robert Hastings Knight, on 1 August that year. As well as working as a salesman for paper merchants Edward Saunders & Sons, he wrote for two local Sussex newspapers: the West Sussex Gazette and the Southern Weekly News in which he related his remarkable propensity for discovering 'clean' antiquities. One of these, a 'silver' ingot (discovered by Richard Morris to be housed in Price's collection of artefacts at Senate House, University of London and made of base materials) was stamped around the time of the last Roman emperor Honorius. A few years later, another celebrated Sussex archaeologist, Charles Dawson, found a brick at Pevensey Fort in Sussex, which was purportedly made in Honorius' time. In 1910 Professor Francis J. Haverfield of Oxford University, the country's foremost expert on Roman history and a Fellow of the Royal Academy, declared the ingot to be a fake. A report for the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries (number 23, pages 121–9) in the same year reported that:
Through his father, who died in 1906, he inherited a share in the paper firm which gave him more independent means to support his interests. At the start of the First World War he attempted to enlist for service but was medically rejected because of heart strain though he offered the Royal Flying Corps assistance with colour filters for aerial photography. At his Pulborough home he set up a workshop for making shell-fuses and in 1918 worked as night shift foreman at a munitions works in Tottenham.
Interest in magic and conjuring
In his autobiography, Search for Truth, Price said encountering the "Great Sequah" in Shrewsbury was "entirely responsible for shaping much of my life's work",Tabori (1950) p. 21 and led to him acquiring the first volume of what would become the Harry Price Library. He met the purportedly Native American magician who appeared with a circus troupe in 1889 when Price, then aged eight, was reportedly cured of a toothache.Shropshire Magazine, article by Kenneth G. Kinrade, "The Life Story of a Shropshire "Ghost Hunter", part 1, September 1954, p.19. Price later became an expert amateur conjurer, joined the Magic Circle in 1922 and maintained a lifelong interest in stage magic and conjuring.Paul Tabori. (1974). Harry Price: The Biography of a Ghosthunter. Sphere Books. pp. 41–42. His expertise in sleight-of-hand and magic tricks stood him in good stead for what would become his all consuming passion, the investigation of paranormal phenomena.
The psychical researcher Eric Dingwall and Price re-published an anonymous work written by a former medium entitled Revelations of a Spirit Medium (1922) which exposed the tricks of mediumship and the fraudulent methods of producing "spirit hands".Eric Dingwall, Harry Price. (1922). Revelations of a Spirit Medium. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Originally all the copies of the book were bought up by spiritualists and deliberately destroyed.Georgess McHargue. (1972). Facts, Frauds, and Phantasms: A Survey of the Spiritualist Movement. Doubleday. p. 158.
Psychical research
Price joined the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) in 1920. He used his knowledge of conjuring to debunk fraudulent mediums, but unlike other magicians, Price endorsed some mediums that he believed were genuine.Paul Tabori. (1974). Harry Price: The Biography of a Ghosthunter. Sphere Books. pp. 43–48. Price's first major success in psychical research came in 1922 when he exposed the 'spirit' photographer William Hope.Leaves from a Psychist's Case Book by Harry Price, Page 213.Hall (1978) p. 222 In the same year he travelled to Germany together with Eric Dingwall and investigated Willi Schneider at the home of Baron Albert von Schrenck-Notzing in Munich.Hall (1978) pp. 136–153 In 1923, Price exposed the medium Jan Guzyk; according to Price, the "man was clever, especially with his feet, which were almost as useful to him as his hands in producing phenomena".Harry Price. (1942). Search for Truth: My Life for Psychical Research. Collins p. 206
Price wrote that the photographs depicting the ectoplasm of the medium Eva Carrière taken with Schrenck-Notzing looked artificial and two-dimensional, as if made from cardboard and newspaper portraits, and that there were no scientific controls as both her hands were free. In 1920, Carrière was investigated by psychical researchers in London. An analysis of her ectoplasm revealed it to be made of chewed paper. She was also investigated in 1922 and the result of the tests were negative.Harry Price. (1939). Fifty Years of Psychical Research. Longmans, Green & Co. In 1925, Price investigated Maria Silbert and caught her using her feet and toes to move objects in the séance room.Lewis Spence. (1991). Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology. Gale Research Company. p. 1522 He also investigated the "direct voice" mediumship of George Valiantine in London. In the séance Valiantine claimed to have contacted the "spirit" of the composer Luigi Arditi, speaking in Italian. Price wrote down every word that was attributed to Arditi and they were found to be word-for-word matches in an Italian phrase-book.Harry Price. (1942). Search for Truth: My Life for Psychical Research. Collins. p. 203
Price formed an organisation in 1925 called the National Laboratory of Psychical ResearchHarry Price (1933). An Account of Some Further Experiments with Rudi Schneider. London: National Laboratory of Psychical Research, Bulletin IV, p. 3. as a rival to the Society for Psychical Research. Price had a number of disputes with the SPR, most notably over the mediumship of Rudi Schneider.James Houran. (2004). From Shaman to Scientist: Essays on Humanity's Search for Spirits. Scarecrow Press. p. 169. Price paid mediums to test them—the SPR criticised Price and disagreed about paying mediums for testing.Jenny Hazelgrove. (2000). Spiritualism and British Society Between the Wars. Manchester University Press. p. 206.
Price made a formal offer to the University of London to equip and endow a Department of Psychical Research, and to loan the equipment of the National Laboratory and its library. The University of London Board of Studies in Psychology responded positively to this proposal. In 1934, the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, which held Price's collection, was reconstituted as the University of London Council for Psychical Investigation with C. E. M. Joad as chairman and with Price as Honorary Secretary and editor, although it was not an official body of the university.Hall (1978) p. 169 In the meantime, in 1927 Price joined the Ghost Club, of which he remained a member until it (temporarily) closed in 1936.
In 1927, Price claimed that he had come into possession of Joanna Southcott's box, and arranged to have it opened in the presence of one reluctant prelate (the Bishop of Grantham, not a diocesan bishop but a suffragan of the Diocese of Lincoln): it was found to contain only a few oddments and unimportant papers, among them a lottery ticket and a horse-pistol. His claims to have had the true box have been disputed by historians and by followers of Southcott.Hall (1978) pp. 154–160 Price exposed Frederick Tansley Munnings, who claimed to produce the independent "spirit" voices of Julius Caesar, Dan Leno, Hawley Harvey Crippen and King Henry VIII. Price invented and used a piece of apparatus known as a voice control recorder and proved that all the voices were those of Munnings. In 1928, Munnings admitted fraud and sold his confessions to a Sunday newspaper.Paul Tabori. (1966). Harry Price: The Biography of a Ghosthunter. Living Books. p. 125
Price was friends with other debunkers of fraudulent mediums including Harry Houdini and the journalist Ernest Palmer.Harry Houdini. (2011 reprint edition). Originally published in 1924. A Magician Among the Spirits. Cambridge University Press. p. 123. Alfred Douglas. (1982). Extra-Sensory Powers: A Century of Psychical Research. Overlook Press. p. 201.