T. C. Lethbridge
T. C. Lethbridge | |
---|---|
Cambridge University | |
Occupation(s) | Explorer, archeologist, and parapsychologist |
Employer | University of Cambridge |
Known for | The Power of the Pendulum |
Thomas Charles Lethbridge (23 March 1901 – 30 September 1971), better known as T. C. Lethbridge, was an English
Born in
caused significant controversy within the archaeological community, with most archaeologists believing that Lethbridge had erroneously misidentified a natural feature. Lethbridge's methodology and theories were widely deemed unorthodox, and in turn he became increasingly critical of the archaeological profession.After resigning from the university museum in 1957, Lethbridge moved with his wife to
Early life
Youth
Thomas Charles Lethbridge was born on 23 March 1901.[1] His parents, Violet Lethbridge (née Murdoch) and her husband Ambrose Lethbridge, were wealthy and lived at Knowle House in Timberscombe, Somerset in south-west England, where they employed seven servants.[2] The family's fortune stemmed from Ambrose's father Charles Lethbridge, who had married the wealthy coal heiress Susan Anne Yarburgh.[2] Neither Charles nor Ambrose had to earn a living, and as gentlemen of "independent means" spent their time engaged in rural hobbies.[3] By 1907 the Lethbridge family had moved to Lewell Lodge, Dorchester in Dorset, where Violet gave birth to daughter Jacintha in June.[4] They then moved to a house named Trevissome in Flushing, Cornwall, where a second son, Ambrose "Bill" William Speke Lethbridge, was born.[4] Thomas' father Ambrose contracted tuberculosis at the end of the decade, resulting in the family moving into Charles' house in Heytesbury, Wiltshire, where Ambrose died in September 1909, aged 34.[5]
Around this time, Thomas developed an interest in
University and Jan Mayen: 1921–1923
In October 1921 Lethbridge enrolled at
During his studies Lethbridge decided to join an expedition to visit
At Cambridge, Lethbridge had entered into a romantic relationship with Sylvia Robertson, a clergyman's daughter, and they were engaged to be married in March 1922.[15]
In mid-1922 he went on a sailing voyage around the Hebrides in Scotland with his fellow Trinity student Geoffrey Walford.[16]
In summer 1923 Lethbridge was part of a second expedition led by Wordie, designed to explore the eastern coast of
Archaeological career
Keeper of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities, and marriages: 1923–1947
During his student years, Lethbridge had frequented the
In February 1924, Lethbridge married Sylvia Robertson in a ceremony held at Salisbury Cathedral.[24] Together they moved into a house known as The Lodge in Waterbeach.[25] There, their first two sons were born: Christopher John in March 1925 and Hugh Periam in July 1926.[26] In 1927, they moved to Mount Blow, a house in Shelford designed by architect Edwin Lutyens.[27] It was there that Sylvia gave birth to a daughter, Belinda Mary, in April 1930.[28] Sylvia suffered from mental illness however, resulting in repeated hospitalisation.[29] Lethbridge meanwhile devoted much of his time to yachting around the British Isles, sometimes taking family members with him.[30] Over the course of the 1930s he self-published a series of books featuring his own sketches and engravings of maritime scenes.[31] He also deepened his interest in the paranormal during this period, coming to believe that an acquaintance of his was a genuine psychic and observing an unidentified flying object in Bracknell.[32]
In 1937, Wordie organised an expedition to North West Greenland to investigate
As the Second World War loomed, the British Admiralty commissioned Lethbridge to undertake a reconnaissance mission to Iceland to analyse German naval activity around the country, which he carried out in summer 1939. Lethbridge however treated the mission with contempt, spending much of the time visiting sites that interested him, such as locations mentioned in the Icelandic Sagas.
Meanwhile, Lethbridge's wife Sylvia had been having affairs with various men, and he himself had begun an affair with Sylvia's younger cousin Mina, who was a secretary at the museum. The couple divorced in June 1943, and in November Lethbridge sold Mount Blow to pay a settlement to Sylvia.[42] He married Mina in July 1944 at Oban, and together they moved from Cambridge to a farm on the Scottish island of Kerrera, where Lethbridge excavated some local caves. But the couple found life on Kerrera too isolated and soon returned to Cambridge,[43] despite Lethbridge's dislike of the place and most of the university staff whom he worked alongside.[44] He nevertheless continued his archaeological investigations, excavating an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Lackford on Cavenham Heath, and involving himself in the investigation of the newly unearthed Mildenhall Treasure, being the individual responsible for locating its probable discovery spot.[45] He was among the first to take an interest in the cemeteries of the Mid Anglo-Saxon period, believing that the lack of 'pagan' objects such as weapons reflected the fact that those buried in two seventh-century cemeteries were among the earliest Anglo-Saxon Christians.[46] In January 1948, Lethbridge received word that his son Hugh had died by suicide after suffering post-traumatic stress disorder during his time in the armed forces.[47]
Major publications and Gogmagog: 1948–1957
1948 also saw the publication of Lethbridge's first major book, Merlin's Island: Essays on Britain in the Dark Ages, a collection of six essays on various elements of Early Medieval Britain. Representing Lethbridge's unorthodox and eclectic approach, it was aimed at a popular rather than academic audience, and although some academic reviewers were critical, it received much qualified praise.
Lethbridge's next project focused on searching for a chalk
In May 1957, the Egyptologist
Later life
Embracing parapsychology: 1957–1964
"There is really only one study of man, and this should be known as Anthropology. Medical Science, History, Archaeology, Folk Lore and the rest are all branches of the one study. But this present age is one of specialization and all the branches are tending to become so elaborate and, at the same time, so constricted that we are in need of trained middle-men, who have a wide enough grasp of all of them to pull the whole thing together and present it in a readable form to those who wish to learn."
— T.C. Lethbridge, 1962.[61]
As a result of the widespread rejection of his Gogmagog claims, Lethbridge became increasingly critical of the academic and professional archaeological community, believing that an attitude of what he called "trade unionism" had caused most archaeologists to reject independent thought. As a result, he decided to resign and move away from Cambridge in late 1957.
His first book on the subject of what he often termed "the odd" was Ghost and Ghoul, published in 1961 by Routledge and Kegan Paul.[68] In this work he argued that the mind was separate from the brain; he believed that the mind was connected to an ancestral collective mind which everyone inherited. Many of the ideas expressed in the work were akin to those of Carl Jung, Richard Semon, and Amy Warburg, although it is not clear if Lethbridge had been aware of this beforehand.[68] An extract was subsequently published in the January 1963 edition of Fantastic Stories of Imagination.[69] He followed this work with Witches – Investigating an Ancient Religion (1962), which articulated a form of Murray's witch-cult hypothesis but also contained many digressions and anecdotes unrelated to that topic.[70] Returning to the themes present in Ghost and Ghoul, Lethbridge published Ghost and Divining Rod in 1963, in which he discussed his progress with his pendulum experiments.[71] On the basis of this, the BBC filmed a short documentary titled Ghost Hunting with T.C. Lethbridge in May 1964, in which Lethbridge was filmed repeating his pendulum experiences in his garden.[72]
Final years: 1965–1971
Lethbridge's next book was ESP – Beyond Time and Distance, published in 1965. It dealt with the theme of
In 1969, Lethbridge published The Monkey's Tail, in which he discussed
Lethbridge's heart condition worsened, to the extent that he was unable to attend his mother's funeral in 1970.
Reception and legacy
"The death of T. C. Lethbridge in the early autumn of last year took away from us a man who had been a colourful, stimulating, provocative and often controversial figure in British archaeology; a man who could very properly be described, in Cyrus Gordon’s phrase, as one who throughout his life kept an open mind and avoided confusing majority opinion with truth."
— Glyn Daniel, 1972.[85]
Archaeologist Niall Finneran asserted that Lethbridge had a "distinguished if fairly unspectacular reputation" within British archaeology prior to his adoption of fringe theories.[86] Various colleagues expressed critical praise of his work in this field; for instance, Lethbridge's fellow Anglo-Saxon archaeologist Audrey Meaney noted that his "observations on features in the cemeteries he excavated around Cambridge were perspicacious but in advance of his time".[87] Another Anglo-Saxon archaeologist, Sam Lucy, later noted that Lethbridge's observation that those buried with Anglo-Saxon material culture need not have been ethnically descended from continental migrants was – while largely ignored by his contemporaries – widely accepted in scholarship by the end of the 20th century.[88] However, his embrace of unorthodox and pseudo-scientific views later led to professional archaeologists becoming increasingly critical of his work; as his biographer Terry Welbourn noted, Lethbridge's peers came to view him as being "too radical ... a loose cannon and maverick".[89]
On his death, Glyn Daniel described Lethbridge as "a colourful, stimulating, provocative and often controversial figure in British archaeology", who represented "one of the last of that invaluable band of dilettante scholars and devoted amateurs of whom we have had so many in Britain".[85] Although stating that Lethbridge only emerged as a "semi-professional" for a "short time", he praised much of Lethbridge's writing for its "freshness and an eager restless sense of enquiry".[85] An anonymously authored obituary in The Antiquaries Journal referred to "the strength and honesty of Lethbridge's character as a man, and the singleness of purpose that united all his work, as experimental testing of what he found by observation", seeing these as the unifying characteristics behind his divergent research interests.[90] According to the historian Ronald Hutton, as a result of both his unorthodox ideas and his "contempt for professionalism in all fields", Lethbridge's "status as a scholar never really rose above that of an unusually lively local antiquary".[91] His books continue to be largely ignored by academics into the 21st century.[92]
Describing Lethbridge as "one of the most compelling" figures in 20th-century British archaeology,[93] Finneran believed that at the start of the 21st century, Lethbridge was best known for his advocacy of dowsing.[93] As such, Finneran asserted that Lethbridge's "true legacy" lay outside of "conventional archaeology", and could instead be located within the Earth mysteries movement.[94] Lethbridge's work continued to attract interest from parapsychologists after his death. The author M.B. Devot drew heavily on Ghost and Ghoul in his Spirits of Field and Hearth.[95] In 1978, the author Colin Wilson devoted part one of his book Mysteries to a discussion of Lethbridge's ideas.[96] In 2003, a group of admirers of his work calling themselves "The Sons of T.C. Lethbridge" (Doggen Foster, Kevlar Bales and Welbourn Tekh), with the aid of Wilson and Julian Cope, released A Giant: The Definitive T.C. Lethbridge, a set comprising a booklet and two CDs containing music accompanying discussions of Lethbridge's work.[97] Welbourn subsequently published a biography of Lethbridge in 2011, titled T.C. Lethbridge: The Man who Saw the Future; in it, he expressed his view that the archaeologist was "one of the most remarkable, yet overlooked men of the twentieth century".[89]
Bibliography
A full bibliography of Lethbridge's published books and academic papers is provided in Welbourn's biography.[98]
Year of publication | Title | Publisher |
---|---|---|
1931 | Recent Excavations in Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk: A Report | Cambridge Archaeological Society (Cambridge) |
1933 | Shanty | Self-published |
1933 | Some West Country Coasters | Self-published |
1934 | From Dublin to Elsinore in a Sailing Ship | Self-published |
1935 | North About: Notes on a Passage from the Clyde to the Åland Islands | Self-published |
1936 | Short Splices – Some Notes on Ships and Boats | Self-published |
1937 | Umiak: The European Ancestry of the 'Women's Boat' | Self-published |
1938 | Fishermen of Durness | Self-published |
1939 | Notes from Tili | Self-published |
1948 | Merlin's Island: Essays on Britain in the Dark Ages | Methuen & Co. (London) |
1950 | Herdsmen and Hermits: Celtic Seafarers in the Northern Sea | Bowes and Bowes (Cambridge) |
1952 | Coastwise Craft | Methuen & Co (London) |
1952 | Boats and Boatmen | Thames and Hudson (London) |
1954 | The Painted Men: A History of the Picts | Andrew Melrose (London) |
1957 | Gogmagog: The Buried Gods | Routledge and Kegan Paul (London) |
1961 | Ghost and Ghoul | Routledge and Kegan Paul (London) |
1962 | Witches: Investigating an Ancient Religion | Routledge and Kegan Paul (London) |
1963 | Ghost and Divining Rod | Routledge and Kegan Paul (London) |
1965 | ESP: Beyond Time and Distance | Routledge and Kegan Paul (London) |
1967 | A Step in the Dark | Routledge and Kegan Paul (London) |
1969 | The Monkey's Tail: A Study in Evolution and Parapsychology | Routledge and Kegan Paul (London) |
1972 | The Legend of the Sons of God: A Fantasy? | Routledge and Kegan Paul (London) |
1976 | The Power of the Pendulum | Routledge and Kegan Paul (London) |
1980 | The Essential T.C. Lethbridge | Routledge and Kegan Paul (London) |
Notes and references
Footnotes[95]
- ^ Anonymous 1972, p. 448; Welbourn 2011, p. 19.
- ^ a b Welbourn 2011, p. 19.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 19–20.
- ^ a b Welbourn 2011, p. 20.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 20–21.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 21.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 22.
- ^ Anonymous 1972, p. 448; Finneran 2003, p. 107; Welbourn 2011, p. 23.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 24.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 107; Welbourn 2011, pp. 24–26, 41.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 28–29.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 29.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 29–33.
- ^ a b Welbourn 2011, p. 34.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 62.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 41–42.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 35–39.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 107; Welbourn 2011, pp. 49–50.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 108; Welbourn 2011, p. 50.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 52–54.
- ^ a b Welbourn 2011, p. 60.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 128.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 77–79.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 62–63.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 63.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 65–66.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 66.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 67.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 67, 75.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 67–71.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 71.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 72–75, 77.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 81.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 82–83.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 83–85.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 86–87.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 88.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 89–94.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 96.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 95–96.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 96–97.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 97–100.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 101–102.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 114–115.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 102–115.
- ^ Geake 1992, p. 84.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 116–117.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 108; Welbourn 2011, pp. 116–121.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 128–131, 135.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 131–133.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 133.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 143–146.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 134–135.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 141–143.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 109; Welbourn 2011, pp. 147–151; Gibson 2013, pp. 93–94.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 152–153.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 151.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 109; Welbourn 2011, pp. 152–154.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 154–157, 160–161.
- ^ Welbourn 2010, p. 40; Welbourn 2011, pp. 157–159, 164–165.
- ^ Lethbridge 1962, p. ix.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 163–164.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 164, 197.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 259.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 198–200.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 203.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 110; Welbourn 2011, pp. 208–212.
- ^ a b Finneran 2003, p. 110; Welbourn 2011, pp. 213–222.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 229.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 110; Welbourn 2011, pp. 223, 226.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 110; Welbourn 2011, pp. 231–233.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 234–237.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 238–239.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 110; Welbourn 2011, p. 242.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 240.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 244–258.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 110; Welbourn 2011, pp. 260–261.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 110; Welbourn 2011, pp. 267–271.
- ^ Finneran 2003, pp. 109–110.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 272.
- ^ Anonymous 1972, p. 448; Welbourn 2011, p. 274.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 274.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 275.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 275–276.
- ^ a b c Daniel 1972, p. 5.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 108.
- ^ Meaney 1981, p. 37.
- ^ Lucy 2000, p. 173.
- ^ a b Welbourn 2011, p. 13.
- ^ Anonymous 1972, p. 449.
- ^ Hutton 1999, p. 274.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 16.
- ^ a b Finneran 2003, p. 107.
- ^ Finneran 2003, p. 112.
- ^ a b Fortean Times No.53 MB Devot, A Life in the Hedgerow
- ^ Welbourn 2011, p. 276.
- ^ Cope, Julian (2003). "Bring It On!" in A Giant: The Definitive T.C. Lethbridge booklet. Lincoln: Aegir Recording Company.
- ^ Welbourn 2011, pp. 327–332.
References
- Anonymous (1972). "Obituary of T.C. Lethbridge". The Antiquaries Journal. 52. Society of Antiquaries of London: 448–449. .
- Daniel, Glyn (1972). "Editorial". Antiquity. 46 (181). The Antiquity Trust: 1–7. .
- Geake, Helen (1992). "Burial Practice in Seventh- and Eighth-Century England". In Martin Carver (ed.). The Age of Sutton Hoo: The Seventh Century in North-Western Europe. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. pp. 83–94. ISBN 978-0851153308.
- Gibson, Marion (2013). Imagining the Pagan Past: Gods and Goddesses in Literature and History Since the Dark Ages. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-67419-5.
- Finneran, Niall (2003). "The Legacy of T.C. Lethbridge". Folklore. 114 (1). The Folklore Society: 107–114. S2CID 216644161.
- ISBN 978-0-19-820744-3.
- Lethbridge, T.C. (1962). Witches: Investigating an Ancient Religion. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
- Lucy, Sam (2000). The Anglo-Saxon Way of Death: Burial Rites in Early England. Stroud: Sutton Publishing. ISBN 978-0750921039.
- ISBN 978-0-86054-148-6.
- Welbourn, Terry (2010). "The Buried Gods of Gogmagog". British Archaeology. No. 112. York: Council for British Archaeology. pp. 38–41. ISSN 1357-4442.
- Welbourn, Terry (2011). T.C. Lethbridge: The Man Who Saw the Future. Winchester and Washington: O-Books. ISBN 978-1-84694-500-7.
External links
- Lethbridge website recorded at archive.org at the Wayback Machine (archived 24 July 2012)