Roy C. Firebrace

Brigadier Roy C. W. G. Firebrace CBE (16 August 1889–10 November 1974) was a Canadian-born British Army officer, siderealist astrologer, and founder and editor of the journal "Spica".

According to data reported by him in "Spica" (January 1973), Firebrace was born on 16 August 1889 at 5:00 p.m. AST, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where his English father had an army post. He was commissioned into the Royal Artillery. He was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel in 1936, Colonel in 1937, and retired as a Brigadier in 1946.

A big-framed man, known affectionately as "the Brig", Firebrace worked closely with the eminent siderealist Cyril Fagan (1896-1970) and gained a life-long interest in sidereal astrology.

Firebrace was one of the founders of the UK Astrological Association in 1958 and was its first president. His enthusiasm for sidereal astrology was resisted by other members; in March 1961 he resigned to found "Spica," the quarterly he published until October 1974. This journal was a major driving force behind the western siderealist movement in the second half of the 20th century.

He also authored a series of books called "The Moray Series" and contributed to "American Astrology" magazine.

Firebrace, who served in the army from 1908 to 1946, was the British military attaché in Riga before the beginning of the Second World War and later in Moscow until 1940. He acted as an observer for Winston Churchill when Molotov visited London in 1942. During his service in military intelligence, Firebrace was involved (in 1944) in the affair surrounding the arrest and prosecution of Helen Duncan, a famous British spiritualist medium, under the Witchcraft Act of 1735 (repealed by the Attlee government in 1951). For many years he was president of the College of Psychic Studies in London.

References

*Ken Gillman, "Roy C. Firebrace", in John McKay-Clements, "The Canadian Astrology Collection," Toronto, Canadian Astrology Press, 1998, ISBN 0-9683695-0-2, pp. 24-25.