Logie Barrow - Independent Spirits: Spiritualism and English Plebeians, 1850-1910

Volume 2

First published in 1986 by Routledge & Kegan Paul plc

This edition first published in 2016
by Routledge
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1986 Logie Barrow

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-138-66565-1 (Set)
ISBN: 978-1-315-61965-1 (Set) (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-63855-6 (Volume 2) (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-63856-3 (Volume 2) (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-63771-6 (Volume 2) (ebk)

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

Logie Barrow

Spiritualism and English Plebeians, 18501910

To
Nina and Derek Barrow
two differently independent spirits

First published in 1986
by Routledge & Kegan Paul pic

11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Published in the USA by
Routledge & Kegan Paul Inc.
in association with Methuen Inc.
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Set in Linotron Bembo
by Input Typesetting Ltd, London SW19
and printed in Great Britain
by T.J. Press (Padstow) Ltd
Padstow, Cornwall

Logie Barrow 1986

No part of this book may by reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Barrow, Logie.
Independent spirits.

(History workshop series)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. SpiritualismEnglandHistory 19th century.
2. SpiritualismEnglandHistory20th century.
3. Labor and laboring classesEnglandHistory19th
century. 4. Labor and laboring classesEngland
History20th century. 5. Middle classesEngland
History19th century. 6. Middle classesEngland
History20th century. 7. EnglandReligion19th
century. 8. EnglandReligion 20th century.
9. EnglandIntellectual life19th century.
10. EnglandIntellectual life20th century. I. Title.
II. Series.
BF1242.G7B371986133.909428528170

British Library CIP data also available

ISBN 0710098839 (c)
0710208154 (p)

1 Charter of the Spiritualist National Union (Harry Price Library, University of London HPL)

(Places of publication are London unless otherwise stated)

Quantitatively, most of this book is about the culture of self-educating British people of humble birth during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Fundamentally, though, it is also part of an argument about when and how widely knowledge can be accessible, and about how assumptions on accessibility sometimes interact with the content of such knowledge. The argument surfaces particularly during ), but has underlain the writing of this book right through from the preconceptual stage. It has been an unpleasant companion. It brings no direct comfort to any political viewpoint.

Indirections are said to find directions out but, with the writing of at least this book, their speed is as wasp-like as their motion. This particular wasp is thus laden with debts. In 1971, Eric Hobsbawm raised a few good jokes but, mercifully, no direct veto when a student, purportedly crawling after a doctorate on Robert Blatchford and the Clarion , winged a fat chapter on spiritualism. I often wonder whether I would be so tolerant. Positive reassurance came when Dorothy Thompson seemed interested by a five-minute monologue; when Sheila Rowbotham and Sharon Collins arranged to hear a much longer one; and when Hermione Harris, on their recommendation, commented on my typescript. The enthusiasm of Stephen Yeo, and then of Raphael Samuel and Gareth Stedman Jones added my revised chapter to the editorial files of History Workshop. Although this journals editors held to an unprecedentedly Collective work-rhythm, I would be slick not to mention the two who sacrificed the most of their time: Anna Davin, particularly for her robustly sensitive subbings, and Jane Caplan for her almost telepathic attunement to the message behind a depressive style.

Parts of this book are indebted also to interest shown at various history workshops, at two meetings of the Society for the Social History of Medicine, at seminars in Cambridge, Braunschweig and Roskilde on social history, at the Wellcome Institutes for the History of Medicine at London and Cambridge, at the Ecclesiastical Historical Society and the Social History Society. It is also indebted further to discussions and correspondence with Ulrike Becker, Roger Cooter, David Goodway, Jimmy Grealey, Marjorie Hanlon, Ruth Harris, J. F. C. Harrison, Preben Kaarsholm, Gustav Klaus, Niall Martin, Alex Owen, Roy Porter, Ruth Richardson, Gareth Stedman Jones, Barbara Taylor, Perry Williams, Hanne Zech and Reinhold Zech. None of the people named have seen or discussed more than one or other part of this book. And even on this scale, few can be accused of having been accessories after the fact.