by Sandi Crain

Created on: July 30, 2011   Last Updated: August 02, 2011

The Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1888 in London, England, and is reported to be the first society dedicated to researching paranormal activity.  Its members included the renowned philosopher Henry Sidgwick, the Nobel Prize winning physicist Lord Rayleigh, and the Prime Minister Arthur Balfour.  So, it's no wonder that everyman Harry Price, one of the society's most notable members, doctored his past a little in his autobiography. 

Probably born in 1881, Harry Price was either born in London or Shropshire.  His father may have been a newspaper man but was probably a traveling salesman who was rarely home.   About the time that Jack the Ripper was terrorizing Whitechapel, London, young Harry lived just a short hop away in New Cross.  It was then that his mother took him to the Great Sequah to have his tooth removed.  The Great Sequah performed magic tricks as a distraction from the extraction and Harry Price was hooked.  He then spent his youth studying magic, illusions, drama, and hypnotism (called mesmerization at the time).  And he started what became known as the "Harry Price Library of Magical Literature". 

When Harry was 15, he and a school friend spent the night in an old manor house that was rumored to be haunted.  Price claimed he and his friend not only heard footsteps but also saw an apparition.  He attempted to get a photograph of the thing but he overloaded his flash with too much powder and it became a humorous anecdote he loved telling in his later years. 

In his autobiography, Harry Price takes credit for founding the Carlton Dramatic Society in 1896 as a result of his haunted house experience.  He wanted to dramatize the event in a play and, making his father president of the society, finally produced "The Sceptic" in 1898.  Although no one denies Harry Price wrote and performed the play, his claim that he founded the Carlton Dramatic Society is in question.  According to the Carlton Dramatic Society, they were not founded until 1927, and Harry Price's name is not mentioned. 

After he left school, Harry dabbled in amateur archaeology and numismatics (coin collecting).  While engaged in this activity he ran across the book "Trade Tokens" by George C. Williamson and was so impressed that he plagiarized two sections that he put into two articles (one on Kent, one on Shropshire) and published them under his own name.  The secretary

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