Frank Podmore (5 February 1856 - 14 August 1910) was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
author, founding member of the
Fabian SocietyThe Fabian Society is a British intellectual socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up...
, and writer on
psychicA psychic is a person who claims to have the ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception, or is said to have such abilities by others...
matters.
Life
Born at
ElstreeElstree is a village in the Hertsmere borough of Hertfordshire on the A5, north of London. It forms part of the civil parish of Elstree and Borehamwood . Elstree is in the Greater London Urban Area....
,
BorehamwoodBorehamwood is a town in southern Hertfordshire, situated north of London. It is part of the borough of Hertsmere within the London commuter belt. As of April 2004, the town had approximately 30,000 residents...
,
HertfordshireHertfordshire , abbreviated Herts, is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford....
, Podmore was the son of Thompson Podmore, headmaster of
EastbourneEastbourne is a large town and borough of East Sussex, on the south coast of England, with an estimated population of 106,652 as of 2009. The area has seen human activity since the stone age and it remained one of small settlements until the 19th century when its four hamlets gradually merged to...
College. He was educated at
HaileyburyHaileybury and Imperial Service College, , is a British independent school founded in 1862. It is a co-educational boarding school enrolling pupils at 11+, 13+ and 16+. Over 750 pupils go to Haileybury, of which 452 live at Haileybury for either week nights or for an entire half term...
and
Pembroke College, OxfordPembroke College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located in Pembroke Square. As of 2007, Pembroke had an estimated financial endowment of £45.5 million.-History:...
(where he first became interested in Spiritualism and joined the
Society for Psychical ResearchThe Society for Psychical Research is a non-profit organization which started in the United Kingdom and was later imitated in other countries...
— this interest remained with him throughout his life).
In October 1883 Podmore and
Edward R. PeaseEdward Reynolds Pease was an English writer and a founding member of the Fabian Society.Pease, the sixth of fifteen children, was born near Bristol, the son of devout Quakers, Thomas Pease and Susanna Ann Fry sister of Edward Fry, the judge...
joined a socialist debating group established by
Edith NesbitEdith Nesbit was an English author and poet whose children's works were published under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television...
and
Hubert BlandHubert Bland was an early English socialist and one of the founders of the Fabian Society.Born in Woolwich, south-east London, Bland wanted to join the army but instead became a bank clerk. In 1877, he met 19-year-old Edith Nesbit, a follower of William Morris. They married on 22 April 1880 with...
. Podmore suggested that the group should be named after the Roman General,
Quintus Fabius MaximusQuintus Fabius Maximus is the name of some noble Romans from the gen Fabii:* Fabius Maximus Rullianus, five times consul * Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges, consul * Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges, consul...
, 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 14
Dean's YardDean's Yard, Westminster, comprises most of the remaining precincts of the former monastery of Westminster, not occupied by the Abbey buildings. It is known to members of Westminster School as Green, and referred to without an article...
,
WestminsterThe Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools,, with the highest Oxbridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college...
, 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 of
Robert OwenRobert Owen , born in Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Wales was a social reformer and one of the founders of socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...
(1906).
Podmore resigned from a senior post in the Post Office in 1907. He died by drowning at
MalvernThis article is about the area governed by the civil parish and its environs. For the town centre see Great MalvernMalvern is an urban area in Worcestershire, England...
in August 1910.
Works
Podmore's books and pamphlets include:
- Phantasms of the Living (1886, written with Frederick Myers
Frederic William Henry Myers , was an English poet, essayist and psychical researcher. He was the elder son of Frederic Myers ....
and Edmund GurneyEdmund Gurney was an English psychologist and psychical researcher.-Early life:He was born at Hersham, near Walton-on-Thames. He was educated at Blackheath and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a high place in the classical tripos and obtained a fellowship. His work for the tripos was...
).
- 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
- The History of the Fabian Society by Edward R. Pease
Edward Reynolds Pease was an English writer and a founding member of the Fabian Society.Pease, the sixth of fifteen children, was born near Bristol, the son of devout Quakers, Thomas Pease and Susanna Ann Fry sister of Edward Fry, the judge...
.
- Andrew Lang, The Poltergeist and his explainers, The Making of Religion (Appendix B), Longmans, Green, and C°, London, New York and Bombay, 1900, pp. 324-339.