KATHARINE, KATHERINE OR CATHERINE or EMILY BATES

File Six: LIFE BY DATES 1900 TO END 1902

 

PROBLEMS WITH SOURCES WRITTEN BY KAT HERSELF

One reviewer described Seen and Unseen as an autobiography, but it isn’t one really and Kat didn’t call it that herself, she preferred to think of it as “Psychic reminiscences” - with all that that implies about its accuracy.  It’s based on her spiritual experiences and the people she had met through spiritualism.  References to her life outside spiritualism – especially her early life – are mentioned in a few words if at all and usually without specific dates.  Her two travel books suffer from the same problem.  In them, Kat does mention a lot of places she had already visited – though again without dates – but both are written as guides for travellers who might choose to follow the same route, and concentrate on the pleasures and pains of Kat’s current travels, rather than journeys in the past. 

 

Seen and Unseen seems to have made Kat rather a star in the spiritualism world.  She was encouraged to write several more books between 1908 and 1920, on her experiences in spiritualism; on where she thought the movement ought to be going in the future; and on the new age of Mankind’s spiritual evolution that she was taking part in.  Some events mentioned in earlier books are elaborated in the later ones, in a way that worries me: I can’t decide whether Kat is just allowing more detail of a particular event to be published; or whether she was adding more and more invented superstructure to an original core of a spiritualistic event that she had experienced, often many years before.  In Do the Dead Depart?, she described her own method as a medium as intuitional automatic writing, by which she meant that a general outline of the event was supplied by the spirit guide with the medium then filling in the detail.  I’m not sure of the dividing line, in that case, between Kat’s method, and fiction.

 

And then there are the people.  Especially in Seen and Unseen Kat makes no bones about mixing up real names with pseudonyms and it’s not always obvious which is which!   So with most of the people she meets or knew before, I’ve no real idea who it is I should be researching. 

 

It’s clear that some of her novels are set in places Kat had visited; but under the circumstances I’ve thought it better not to assume that the incidents that occur in them actually happened to Kat.

 

Kat’s a bit of a trickster!

 

Sources:

for Kat’s description of Seen and Unseen: Do/Dead p10.

For Kat’s method of intuitional automatic writing: Do/Dead pp167-168 and p185.  There’s also a lot of being wise after the event; but that’s true of all kinds of prediction.

 

 

GETTING TO THE START – SHORT FORMS FOR THE SOURCES

 

GR1; GR2       A Year in the Great Republic, Kat’s account of her travels in Canada and the US.

                        She is named on the original cover as E Catherine Bates.  2 volumes, London:

                        Ward and Downey 1887.

KSS                 Kaleidoscope: Shifting Scenes from East to West.  Kat’s account of her time in                        Australasia, the Far East and Alaska.  She’s named on the original cover as E

                        Katharine Bates.  London: Ward and Downey of Covent Garden 1889.

 

S/U                  Seen and Unseen London: Greening and Co 1907; New York: Dodge Publishing                   Company 1908.

                        The page numbers are from my own copy, printed 2016 by Filiquarian Publishing                        Llc, see                        www.Qontro.com

 

Do/Dead          Do the Dead Depart?  I can’t say which name appeared on the front cover of the

                        British edition as I can’t find any copies of it.  E Katharine Bates is the name on

                        the title page of the American edition published New York: Dodge Publishing

                        Company  1908.  My page numbers are from a modern reprint by

                        www.forgottenbooks.com of the US edition.

 

P/Sci/Chr        Psychical Science and Christianity where Kat’s name is E Katharine Bates on the

                        front cover.  London: T Werner Laurie.  No publication date but the British                         Library stamp says “1 SEP 09”. 

 

P/Realm          The Psychic Realm on whose front cover Kat’s name is given as E Katharine                        Bates.  London: Greening and Co 1910.

           

PHFL               Psychic Hints of a Former Life by E Katharine Bates.  London: Theosophical

                        Publishing Society of 161 New Bond Street.  1912.

 

Cope                The Coping Stone: its True Significance by E Katharine Bates.  London: Greening                   and Co Ltd 1912.  The dates given are very vague in this one.

           

OLD                Our Living Dead: Some Talks with Unknown Friends by E Katharine Bates with a

                        Preface by Alfred E Turner.  London: Kegan Paul Trench Trubner and Co Ltd

                        1917

 

C/Dawn           Children of the Dawn by E Katharine Bates (sic).  London: Kegan Paul Trench                 Trubner and Co.  NewYork: E P Dutton and Co 1920.  Kat’s last published work.

 

GETTING TO THE START – LAYOUT

As with my other great life-by-dates – Isabel de Steiger – what was happening will be in italics with the sources and my comments in Times New Roman.

 

 

CARRYING ON FROM 1900

JANUARY 1900

Kat was staying with her eldest brother Henry Stratton Bates and his wife Frances Henrietta, at their house in Hampshire.  She was very ill with bronchitis.  She learned of the death of Francis William Raikes’ only son, during the siege of Ladysmith, and wrote a letter of sympathy to him.  A few days later, the dead son started to communicate psychically with Kat, telling her to let his parents know he had communicated with her.  Kat wrote to Diana Raikes to let her know.  Diana wrote back and over the next few months they kept in touch.

Comment by Sally Davis: by 1891 Henry and Frances Henrietta had moved from Gloucestershire to Hampshire and were living in Twyford Lodge, Twyford.  I think this was where they were in January 1900.  During this particular visit by Kat, Henry Bates brought the news back from his club of a sortie from Ladysmith in which several young officers had been killed.  It’s not clear from Kat’s account whether Henry knew the officers’ names, but Kat immediately thought of Francis William Raikes’ son.  She had not had any direct contact with Francis William for many years, probably not since she had turned down his proposal of marriage; but they had friends in common, so she had heard some of his news.  He had married Diana Mary Howard Barber in 1878 and their only child, Francis Howard Raikes was born 1879.  The younger Francis Raikes joined the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.  He was killed in South Africa on 6 January 1900 during a sortie out of the besieged town of Ladysmith. 

 

As a result of her letter of sympathy, relations between her and Francis William Raikes were re-established.  The Raikes are mentioned quite a bit in Kat’s spiritualism books, though she gives them one of her fake names - ‘forbes’.

 

Sources for the Raikes: freebmd and see earlier life-by-dates files for 1872 and around 1895.

Kat’s reference to him: S/U pp111-114 though in this account Kat says she wrote to him after visiting Cambridge (probably 1895 or 1896), where he had been an undergraduate.

The King’s Royal Rifle Corps Chronicle seen via archive.org p136 in a list of regiment’s officers killed in the Boer War: 2nd Lt F H Raikes. 

Times Sat 13 January 1900 p10: list of recent casualties at Ladysmith.

 

2 MARCH 1900

Kat was at the Westminster Town Hall for a meeting of the Society for Psychical Research.  She was one of several members who gave details of their recent research.  She also took issue with member Frank Podmore’s reservations about some conclusions reached by J H Hyslop after sessions with the medium Leonora Piper.  Kat thought that Piper’s responses couldn’t have been the result of thought transference.

Source: Journal of the Society for Psychical Research volume 9 number 68, issue of April 1900 pp224-225.  Unfortunately the account of the meeting doesn’t give any details of what Kat was actually doing. 

 

EARLY JULY 1900

At their invitation, Kat went on a visit to Diana and Francis William Raikes.

Source: S/U p139 though she’s still calling them ‘forbes’.

 

Comment by Sally Davis: Francis William Raikes was a barrister.  In 1898 he was appointed a judge in the county court in Hull; but I think Kat’s visit must have been to his London house.

Source for F W Raikes’ career: Times Mon 1 October 1906: Judge Francis William Raikes KC, LlD.  In Seen and Unseen pp138-139 Kat reports that Raikes disliked and disapproved of contacting the dead using seances; but eventually, in his grief, he did join in.

4 JULY 1900 during Kat’s visit to the Raikes

Kat had a psychic communication from a woman, a distant relation of hers, that Kat thought had died but who was actually alive.

Source: S/U pp139-140 though her psychic caller is identified as ‘Mabel M’Leod’.  Kat says that she had known her well “when she was a child”.

Comment by Sally Davis: the occasion was the siege of the Peking British Legation by the forces of the Boxer rebellion; which began around 20 June and lasted until 14 August 1900.  The woman Kat means is Ethel Macdonald, wife of Sir Claude Macdonald, leader of the British legation in Peking and elected by his fellows to command the legation’s defence.  With no news coming through of what was happening in Peking, a memorial service for the dead had been all-but-held at St Paul’s cathedral when Kat had her psychic communication.  Kat doesn’t go into detail about how she and Ethel were related and it also may be Ethel’s parents that Kat knew best, rather than Ethel herself – she mentions spending a winter in Italy with them (though without a date for it).  Ethel was the daughter of Major Williams Cairns Armstrong of the 15th Regiment.  As her second husband, she had married Claude Macdonald in 1892. 

Sources for Ethel:

Marriage of William Cairns Armstrong to Louisa McPherson registered Cheltenham April-June quarter 1854.

Familysearch England-EASy GS film number 1470803: baptism of Ethel Armstrong 1 January 1858 at Carisbrooke.  Parents William Cairns Armstrong and wife Louisa Elizabeth.

I think Kat and Ethel were related through the Carleton family:

Familysearch Wales-ODM GS film number 105138: baptism of Oliver Carleton Armstrong 13 November 1859 at Cosheston Pembroke.  Parents William “Cavins” Armstrong and Louisa Elizabeth.   

Marriage of Ethel Armstrong to Patrick James Craigie Robertson registered St George Hanover Square October-December quarter 1882.

Sources for Ethel and Sir Claude:

at //academic.oup.com a photograph of Mary Kingsley, Ethel and Claude Macdonald and Roger Casement, possibly taken in 1893.  It was the subject of an article in African Affairs volume 86  issue number 342 1 January 1987 pp5-6: Mary Kingsley: A West African Group, by Donald Simpson.

For Sir Claude Macdonald who was sent to Japan later in 1900 and became the first British ambassador there, see wikipedia; DNB 1921-21 pp353-54; ODNB volume 35 pp224-225; and Highland Light Infantry Chronicle January-April 1914 pp132-33.

Ethel played an important part in her husband’s success in Japan, creating the role of the most senior wife on the diplomatic staff there.  She became a dame of the British Empire in 1935 for her work for nursing charities, and died in 1941.  See the end of her husband’s ODNB entry volume 35 pp224-225.  And Britain and Japan: Biographical Portraits volume 1 1994, editor I Nish.  On pp133-145: Sir Claude and Lady Ethel Macdonald, by I Nish.

A FEW DAYS AFTER 4 JULY 1900

Kat took Diana Raikes to a meeting of the Society for Psychical Research.  While she was there she told Frederic Myers about the communication from Ethel Macdonald.  He wrote the details down in a notebook but later they were lost.

Source: S/U pp139-140 in which Kat says that Mrs Raikes was known by the pseudonym ‘forbes’ at the Society and articles on her experiences were published with her called ‘Mrs Scott’.

Comment by Sally Davis: I haven’t been able to find an account of Diana Raikes’ spiritualist contact with her son in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, as Scott or any other name; but so far (March 2018) I’ve only looked at the volumes which cover 1900 to 1902.  Kat isn’t correct to say that the Society knew Diana Raikes as Mrs Forbes.  Diana joined the Society in July 1900 as Mrs Raikes; in November 1900 her husband joined too, also using his correct name.

Source: Journal of the Society for Psychical Research.  Volume 9 number 71 issue of July 1900 p269.  Volume 9 number 73 issue of November 1900 p308.  Volume 10 1901 and 1902.

 

PROBABLY WRITTEN BEFORE 1900, BUT PRINTED IN A BOOK AUTUMN 1900

Two devotional poems by Kate in Some Leaves from the Commonplace Book of C.E.B.   For private circulation only, printed by Richard Clay and Sons of London and Bungay.  Book is dated 3 December1900. 

P25      Eternal Burning of Eternal love!

Called Hell by those who dread Thy Cleansing Flame;

Lighten our darkness from Thy heights above,

Burn through our sin, our sorrow and shame!

 

Cleansed by the living Fire that never dies,

Finding our Heaven where some have found their Hell,

Be ours the joyful summons to arise

From our dead selves as from a cast-off shell.

 

And to the outcasts, dwelling in the dark,

Dreading that Fire and calling it our woe;

Send through Thy Ether an electric Spark

Joining their own in one bright living glow.

P26

Saved by the presence of that Spark divine,

Crushed down by sin and error though it be;

Flash from Thy love the power to make it Thine,

Show us the circle made complete in Thee!

 

As thou art granting to our yearning eyes

Brighter and brighter gleams of Living Light,

Throwing Thy glory on our glad surprise,

Flashing Thy marvels in our dazzled sight,

 

So may we learn that Love and Law are One,

Hell, but the shadow of our mortal shame;

Love burns and glows as an eternal sun,

Cleansing, transforming in its endless Flame.

 

Oh, quenchless Flame and never-dying Worm!

Eat through the veils that hide us from that Sun!

Bitter the suffering - but the love is firm,

Wavers nor falters til the work be done.

 

Cleansed by Thy Fire from all spot and stain,

Shining once more in Thy Eternal Light,

All Thy creation claiming Thee again,

Love’s Dawn has broken through Hell’s darkest night!

“EKB”.  Undated.

 

And on p68 Life the Sculptor p69 by “EKB”.  Undated.

p68      With chisel and hammer and measuring rod

Comes Life the Sculptor, who works for God -

From a marble block he fashions the soul

Bit by bit - both part and whole -

 

Stroke after stroke, the chisel bends;

Blow after blow, the hammer descends;

Bit by bit - both part and whole;

So Life fashions the trembling Soul.

 

Stroke after stroke and line upon line,

Callous alike to rain or shine,

Blessing or cursing; the Sculptor stands

To carve and fashion with steady Hands

 

For an angel is prisoned within that stone

Whose weight can be lifted by life alone -

Life the Sculptor, so stern and brave,

Who is there to rescue, to teach, to save.

 

Bit by bit - both part and whole

Emerges at length the living Soul -

Imprison’d in darkness - now free and bright,

‘Tis to Life the Sculptor he owes the light.

 

And yet how we moan with feeble cry

When Life the Sculptor is passing by!

Wherever his chisel and hammer go,

Is wailing and weeping and bitter woe!

 

‘Tis we who suffer, and what care we

For that angel within whom none can see?

Th’imprisoned angel, who vainly calls

And beats his wings ‘gainst the prison walls?

P69

Let him beat and cry or lament and moan,

What matter to us the bitter groan?

Our ears are dull and our eyes are dim,

Let life spare us - we heed not him!

 

But Life the Sculptor is here alone

To heed and answer that feeble moan,

He little recks where the hammer falls

So it breaks at length the prison walls.

 

He little recks how we moan and cry

So the angel within us passes by,

And in passing, lifts those eyes sublime,

Blessing the Sculptor of Life and Time.

 

5 OCTOBER 1900

Kat went to a conversazione organised by the London Spiritualist Alliance.  Two other GD members were also amongst the guests: Alice Gordon, and Arthur Lovell.

Source:

Light: A Journal of Psychical, Occult and Mystical Research.  Published London: Eclectic Publishing Co Ltd of 2 Duke St Adelphi. Volume 22 January-December 1900.  On p491 issue of Sat 13 October 1900.

 

DIFFICULT TO DATE BUT PROBABLY AFTER 1900

Kat went to a debate on immortality, in which archdeacon Wilberforce put forward an argument which allowed for immortality in other species as well as humans.  Canon Hensley Henson opposed Wilberforce in the debate.

Source for Kat attending it: Cope p20 though without a date and I couldn’t identify the venue she named either: St Martin’s Hall.  My dating of the event as after 1900 is based on the careers of the debaters.  In OLD p49 Kat makes a reference to Wilberforce which reads as if she knew either him personally, or his sermons, very well.

There are wikipedia pages for Albert Basil Orme Wilberforce (1841-1916) grandson of the abolitionist; and for Hensley Henson (1863-1947).  Both were Church of England priests.  Henson was a particularly high-and-fast flyer, at one point the youngest ordained priest in the country.  Wilberforce became rector of St John the Evangelist Westminster in 1894; and archdeacon of Westminster in 1900.  Henson was appointed rector of St Margaret’s Westminster, and canon of Westminster Abbey in 1900.  So a date for the debate of after 1900 seems likely.  There was a St Martin’s Hall in Long Acre; but the Queen’s Theatre was built over it in 1867.  Perhaps Kat means the undercroft at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

At archive.org I found Archdeacon Wilberforce: His Ideals and Teaching by C E Woods.  London: Elliot Stock 1917.  I couldn’t find a reference to the debate on immortality in it.

 

Wilberforce makes one or two appearances in the London Spiritualist Alliance’s magazine Light: A Journal of Psychical, Occult and Mystical Research published for the LSA at its offices at Duke Street Adelphi and later at 110 St Martin’s Lane London WC. 

Light volume 2 1882 p343 issue of Sat 22 July 1882 reported on the Society for Psychical Research, which was now fully-constituted.  A list of the Society’s great and good was part of the report.  Canon Wilberforce was not in that list, but he and his wife had been at its first general meeting, on the afternoon of 17 July 1882 at Willis’s Rooms, King Street St James. 

Light volume 17 1897 p83 issue of Sat 13 February 1897 noted that Canon Wilberforce had officiated in St John’s Smith Square at the memorial service for Mrs Massingberd, founder of the Pioneer Club and supporter of such causes as anti-vivisection and women’s suffrage.  Times Wed 3 February 1897 p7 the service was mentioned in the Court Circular as taking place today.  The notice was short and didn’t include the name of the cleric who would officiate. 

At //wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com is a family tree of the Wilberforces.  In 1865 Basil Wilberforce married Caroline Charlotte Jane (1843 to 1909) daughter of Captain Netherton Langford RN.

 

4 JANUARY TO ?END FEBRUARY 1901

Kat was in a sanatorium in Devon for six weeks, taking an open-air cure.  On her last night she had a “horrible fight for mastery between my poor body and soul and some unknown force that was inexorably set upon dividing them”.  Kat saved her life by reciting the 23rd Psalm.

Comments by Sally Davis: on S/U p141 Kat dates her journey to the sanatorium to the day after Lord Roberts’ triumphal procession through London.  Times Thurs 3 January 1901 p4 Court Circular gave a running order, with times, for Roberts’ arrival at Paddington from Southampton, where he would be met by the Prince of Wales.  Then Lord Roberts and Prince Edward would travel in a procession of carriages through the streets to Buckingham Palace. 

From Kat’s description of the treatment patients received, I think she must have been in a Nordrach sanatorium.  She mentions that the chief nurse (Kat calls her Miss Hunter which I presume is one of her fake names) was an old friend of hers; so I guess this must be why she chose this sanatorium rather than any other.  The weather was particularly cold; they got snowed in and then just as Kat was going to be getting away she had this terrible experience.  I would think it was a particularly vivid nightmare; but Kat seems sure she was awake. 

Source: S/U pp141-145.

At archive.org I found a copy of the 1905 issue of Sanatoria for Consumptives published Swan Sonnenschein.  The list for Devonshire had four sanatoria in it.  The most likely one was in Chagford, where Kat had friends: the Dartmoor Sanatorium, though from the information given about it I wasn’t quite sure it had opened by 1901. 

IMMEDIATELY AFTER HER STAY IN THE DEVON SANATORIUM

Kat went to London, where she was laid up for several days by a particularly severe attack of rheumatism.

Source: S/U pp145; her doctor told her the attack had been brought on by a severe shock.

 

17 JANUARY 1901 probably while Kat was in the sanatorium

Frederick Myers died, in Rome.

Source for the date of his death: his wikipedia page.  Kat doesn’t mention his death herself, though she does describe being contacted by him a year later, with a message.

 

JUST BEFORE KAT WENT TO PORTUGAL

Kat met Isabel Smith (later Finch), who had moved into the rooms above Charles Bates’ rooms in Cambridge Terrace.  Isabel and Kat became friends.

Source for the meeting, and for Isabel being both clairvoyant and clairaudient: S/U p146.  Kat says that though they had not known each other before 1901, Isabel was the niece of General Propert, one of Charles Bates’ fellow officers in India and Burma.

Comments by Sally Davis: I haven’t been able to find out anything about Isabel Smith using any of the usual family history sources.  In Do/Dead p206 Kat says she married a man called Charles Finch.  I haven’t been able to find him either; or the marriage.  See my life-by-dates for September 1906 for more information on Isabel.  She and Kat became friends.

 

HAS TO BE BETWEEN MEETING ISABEL SMITH, AND 1909

Kat was introduced by Isabel to the Paris-based doctor Hippolyte Baraduc, who treated his patients’ astral bodies as well as their physical ones.  She interviewed Dr Baraduc, and his assistant took a photograph of her brain.

Source for the visit:

Occult Review volume 32 issue of August 1920: pp104-109 article by Kat: Dr Baraduc; though without any hint of a date.

Dr Baraduc died in 1909.  In her article Kat calls Isabel Smith by her married name of Finch; but that may just be because she was Mrs Finch when Kat was writing it.

 

SPRING 1901

Kat went with a friend to visit cousins in Portugal.  They stayed in Lisbon and at a hotel in Cintra.

Comment by Sally Davis: Kat calls the friend ‘Mrs Frampton’; she doesn’t name her relations.  This was Kat’s first visit to Portugal. 

Source: S/U pp145-146.

 

CENSUS DAY 1901

Kat’s brother Henry may have been between houses.  He was staying at the Imperial Hotel at Torquay.  His wife Frances Henrietta was not in the UK on census day.  Kat’s first cousin Ellen Bearcroft had gone to visit her other first cousin, Louisa Logan, at Louisa’s home – The Coach House, Cliff Side, Grove Road Bournemouth.  Louisa’s unmarried daughter, Grace Logan, was also at that address, which was served by a large staff: a cook, a parlour maid, a kitchen maid and two other maids.

Comment by Sally Davis: Frances Henrietta Bates might have been the ‘Mrs Frampton’ Kat went to Portugal with; though as Mrs Frampton is described in Seen and Unseen as a friend not a relative, Kat may be playing tricks on her readers again.  Henry and Frances Henrietta moved to Alresford in Hampshire, living in the house called Langtons until their deaths.  For more on Grace Logan, whom Kat calls ‘Mary Vernon’ see my life-by-dates for 1897.

Sources: census 1901 and Probate Registry entries 1918 (Henry Stratton Bates) and 1925 (Frances Henrietta Bates). 

 

DURING 1901

Kat and her brother Charles were still members of the Society for Psychical Research.

Source:

Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research volume XV 1900-01.  On p489 Charles and Kat are both in the list of associate members; but this time both with addresses c/o a bank.

 

DECEMBER 1901

Some comments from Kat were published in the journal of the Society for Psychical Research, on whether faith was necessary for psychical researchers.  She thought that St Paul’s definition of faith should be used: the willingness to accept the possibility that in the future evidence will be produced for the existence of things at present unseen.  It allowed for open-mindedness but wasn’t the same as credulity.  At the end of Kat’s comments the editor added a paragraph on the difficulty of agreeing initial conditions for research using spiritualist mediums – they all wanted something different.  The editor had shown Kat’s comments to Oliver Lodge, who was also allowed a paragraph to argue against any insistence that all psychical experiments start with the same initial conditions.

Source: Journal of the Society for Psychical Research volume 10 number 84 issue of December 1901 pp155-157.

Comment by Sally Davis: Society members like Frank Podmore did take the view that faith, and theories based on evidence, were mutually opposed.  When eventually Kat left the Society, part of the reason was that she never agreed with that view, whether you took the word ‘faith’ as faith in a particular outcome, or as Faith in God.

JANUARY 1902

A response from Kat to the comments by the editor and Oliver Lodge was published in the Society for Psychical Research’s journal, saying that they had misunderstood most of what she had written.  In particular, she said she had not argued for fixed initial conditions for all research with all mediums, as both the editor and Lodge seemed to believe she had. 

Source: Journal of the Society for Psychical Research volume 10 number 85 issue of January 1902 pp175-76.  I must say, I didn’t think Kat had written that she wanted the same conditions at the outset of all psychical research experiments.  Quite the opposite – her view was that, given the nature of psychical research, the researcher should agree to conditions that were “reasonable” and “suitable” but not necessarily the same.

 

PROBABLY 1902

Kat visited Egypt again, staying in Cairo.  Either Kat was travelling with her friend the Countess of Dunmore, or she met  up with Lady Dunmore once she had arrived there. She and Lady Dunmore called on an acquaintance of both of them, an Englishman working for the Egyptian government.  As a result of that call, Kat was introduced to the woman she calls Mrs Hope.

Source for Cairo and Lady Dunmore and comments by Sally Davis: Do/Dead p25 though the only date is “Some years ago”.  On this visit, Kat and Lady Dunmore went to call on a man Kat had known for a long time, who was an important member of the British administration, working in Egypt’s finance department.  They were hoping to persuade the man to have a séance with them and contact his dead wife; but the man refused their invitation.  In Do/Dead pp242-43 Kat says that she had stayed with this man for weeks; but presumably that was on one of her other visits to Egypt. 

About Lady Dunmore: wikipedia and www.thepeerage.com identify her as Lady Gertrude Coke (1847-1943)  second daughter of the 2nd Earl of Leicester.  She married Charles Adolphus Murray (1841-1907) in 1866.  Kat also knew Lady Dunmore’s sister Winifred, wife of the 4th Earl of Leitrim (see this life-by-dates 1892). 

On Do/Dead p242 Kat calls the finance department official Sir Augustus Molyneux; and says the woman she called Mrs Hope was his niece.  The names are two of Kat’s fakes and the relationship between them may not be true either. 

What little Kat says about Sir Augustus Molyneux and his work in Egypt makes him sound like Evelyn Baring, first Earl Cromer. 

Mrs Hope is one of Kat’s fake names but she was quite easy to identify as Edith Emily Maturin, née Money.  She was married to Colonel Frederick Harvey Maturin of the East Surrey Regiment but by the time Kat was introduced to her, they were living apart; they were divorced in 1911.  The Maturins had three sons.  The youngest, Charles Gordon Maturin, died in February 1900 aged 13. 

Sources:

Edith Emily Money and Frederick Maturin:

-           wikipedia page of their actor son Eric Bagot Maturin;

-           website www.the kingscandlesticks.com copyright Edward Liveing Fenn;

-           Times 13 October 1911 p3 Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division re Maturin v Maturin and Porch.

The British Library catalogue has books by Edith as Edith Cecil Maturin; and as Mrs Fred Maturin.  Website www.africabib.org has two books by her as Mrs Cecil Porch.

Death of Charles Gordon Maturin: freebmd; that it was in February 1900 at Tonbridge School – Do/Dead p243.

 

DURING 1902

Kat learned of the contact Mrs Hope and her servant Nellie were having, using automatic writing, with Mrs Hope’s dead son.

Source: Do/Dead pp238-248. 

 

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1902 and possibly before the visit to Egypt I’ve put in above

Kat went with a cousin to visit Grindelwald.  When the visit ended they went their separate ways, the cousin to Paris, and Kat to Rome.

Source: S/U pp149-150; Kat doesn’t name the cousin.  She’s got rather a lot of cousins, though all of them are distant relations; so I’m not going to speculate!

I note from Grindelwald’s wikipedia page that it was already well-known in the late 19th century for its summer hiking.  It is also the start-point for climbs on the Eiger and the Wetterhorn; I wonder if Kat had ever tried climbing those?  Richard Wagner had lived there.

NIGHT OF 3-4 FEBRUARY 1902 WHILE KAT WAS AT GRINDELWALD

She was contacted by Frederick Myers who had died the year before.  He tested Kat to see if her belief in spiritualism was still holding good.

Source: OLD pp138-40.

 

11 MAY 1902

Ellen Bearcroft, one of Kat’s two female first cousins, the cousin she most mentions in her books, died at Foregate in Worcester, aged 71.

Source: Probate Registry entries 1902.

 

 

 

That’s the end of this particular file in my Kat Bates life-by-dates sequence.

 

 

Copyright SALLY DAVIS

20 March 2018

 

 

 

Find the web pages of Roger Wright and Sally Davis, including my list of people initiated into the Order of the Golden Dawn between 1888 and 1901, at:

 

www.wrightanddavis.co.uk

 

 

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