Medium William Hope England
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William Hope Medium
1863--1933
William Hope Rewrite
all copied from Flickr.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmediamuseum/sets/72157606849278823/
These photographs of 'spirits'
are taken from an album of photographs unearthed in a Lancashire second-hand
and antiquarian bookshop by one of the Museum's curators. They were taken by
a controversial medium called William Hope (1863-1933).
Born in 1863 in Crewe, Hope
started his working life as a carpenter. In about 1905 he became interested
in spirit photography after capturing the supposed image of a ghost while
photographing a friend.
He went on to found the Crewe
Circle – a group of six spirit photographers led by Hope. When Archbishop
Thomas Colley joined the group they began to publicise their work.
Following World War I support for
the Crewe Circle grew as the grieving relatives of those lost to the war
sought a means of contacting their loved ones.
By 1922 Hope had moved to London
where he became a professional medium. The work of the Crew Circle was
investigated on various occasions.
The most famous of these took
place in 1922, when the Society for Psychical Research sent Harry Price to
investigate the group.
Price collected evidence that
Hope was substituting glass plates bearing ghostly images in order to
produce his spirit photographs.
Later the same year Price
published his findings, exposing Hope as a fraudster. However, many of
Hope’s most ardent supporters spoke out on his behalf, the most famous being
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Hope continued to practice, despite his
exposure. He died in London on 7 March 1933.