- Frank Podmore
Frank Podmore (
5 February 1856 -14 August 1910 ) was an English author, founding member of theFabian Society , and writer onpsychic matters.Life
Born at
Elstree ,Hertfordshire , Podmore was the son of Thompson Podmore, headmaster ofEastbourne College. He was educated at Haileybury andPembroke College, Oxford (where he first became interested in Spiritualism and joined theSociety for Psychical Research — this interest remained with him throughout his life).In October 1883 Podmore and
Edward R. Pease joined asocialist debating group established by Edith Nesbit andHubert Bland . Podmore suggested that the group should be named after the Roman General,Quintus Fabius Maximus , who advocated weakening the opposition by harassing operations rather than becoming involved in pitched battles. In January 1884 the group became known as the Fabian Society and Podmore's home at 14Dean's Yard , Westminster, became the organisation's first official headquarters.In 1886 Podmore and
Sidney Webb conducted a study into unemployment, eventually published as a Fabian Society pamphlet, "The Government Organisation of Unemployed Labour". However, Podmore's major work was a detailed study of the life and ideas ofRobert Owen (1906).Podmore resigned from a senior post in the Post Office in 1907. He died by drowning at Malvern in August 1910.
Works
Podmore's books and pamphlets include:
*"Phantasms of the Living" (1886, written with Frederick Myers andEdmund Gurney ).
*"The Government Organisation of Unemployed Labour" (1886).
*"Apparitions and Thought-Transference" (1892).
*"Studies in Psychical Research" (1897).
*"Modern Spiritualism" (1902). The foremost history of spiritualism. Reprinted as "Mediums of the 19th Century, vols. 1 & 2".
*"Biography of Robert Owen" (1906).
*"Mesmerism and Christian Science" (1909).
*"The Newer Spiritualism" (1910).External links
* [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/7/1/13715/13715-h/13715-h.htm "The History of the Fabian Society"] by
Edward R. Pease .
* Andrew Lang, [http://www.psychanalyse-paris.com/807-The-Poltergeist-and-his.html The Poltergeist and his explainers] , "The Making of Religion" (Appendix B), Longmans, Green, and C°, London, New York and Bombay, 1900, pp. 324-339.
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