by Harry Ludlum
On June 16, 1937, Price and Howe again visited the Rectory and during an evening inspection discovered that two of their control objects, which had been placed inside chalked circles, had moved out of them; in one case to a point several feet away. Price later commented that, as the movement of these objects appeared to have occurred while he and Howe were absent from the building, no valid comment could be made.
One of the complaints made by Messrs Dingwall, Goldney and Hall, in The Haunting of Borley Rectory, was that Price's editing had resulted in the reports being presented inaccurately. They were attempting to show that this was, in their view, yet another pointer to the dubious nature of the story of Borley Rectory and of the integrity of Harry Price. Against these allegations, Hastings made the following observations:
Firstly, he stated that Price reserved the right to edit his observers' reports where he felt considerations of space justified this action.
Hastings also pointed out that Price's intention in writing The Most Haunted House in England was to present the case to ordinary members of the public rather than to those of a purely academic turn of mind.
Basically, what Harry Price wanted to produce was something that was easy to read, without descending to a level of undue simplicity, or as he put it, neither too scientific, nor too 'popular'. Price's editing of the reports was hardly a deliberate aim to mislead, and he did tell his readers where his files, the sources and basis of his book, had been placed.
In connection with aspects of the life of the Bull family at Borley Rectory, Mr T. H. Hall in particular, made much of Price's editing of the séance results, documented by Sidney Glanville and placed in the Locked Book. After the war it was handed over to Hall, who persuaded the then head of the Harry Price Library, Doctor Pafford, that Glanville had given the book to him.
The full text of the séance results in the Locked Book included the names of people who had come to light during the séances themselves. Only two of the names were repeated by Harry Price when he included the séance results in his books, and they were Katie Boreham and Marie Lairre. Other names were replaced in the books by blanks, excepting the Waldegraves, who had long since ceased to have any living connection with Borley.
Trevor Hall's main criticism of these results related to suggestions that somebody died there as a result of poisoning. The inference usually put upon this was that the victim was either Katie or Harry Bull, but Price did not name Harry Bull as such in his books. Why should he have given the names of Katie Boreham and Marie Lairre? There is one very simple answer, I believe, and it is this. Firstly, there was a Katie Boreham of Sudbury who died in the same year as that given by the Katie that Price told us had allegedly come to light during the séance sessions.
The relevant point here also is that the real Katie Boreham was many years dead, as the Parish Records seemed to show, and it is doubtful whether Price even thought about any living Borehams. Therefore, there would be little objection to naming her. Incidentally, no complaints seem to have been made at the time by any member of the Boreham family.
Secondly, Marie Lairre was an unproven personality. If she was real and further if she had died something during the 17th century, then there was surely no worthwhile objection to the name being given in Price's books. But when it came to those parts of the results that seem to relate to members of the Bull family, then Price really did have no choice but to withhold names because various relatives of those concerned were still alive and others not long departed.
It should not be forgotten that at the time the Glanvilles carried out the séances, Harry Bull had only been dead ten years and his brother, Walter, some of his sisters and relatives from Pentlow were still going strong. In the final analysis, the accusations against Harry Price over his editing of the reports, both of the séances and the observers' logs, really amount to little better than innuendo and irrelevance.
Price's tenancy of Borley Rectory lasted until 1938 and a précis of occurrences during the period covered by his team of investigators is included in the chapter that deals with the hauntings. In the end, two main points motivated Price's decision to view his team's work as being finished. The Church was anxious to finally dispose of the place and at the same time Price himself felt unable to provide further money to continue his tenancy.
The next important period of involvement for Harry Price came in 1943, when, after a period of trying to overcome the practical problems, he was at last able to get the excavations started on the site of the ruined rectory. Price was accused of 'calculated treachery' over this period for not inviting his associate Sidney Glanville to the dig, but quite apart from any other considerations, there would have been nowhere for him to stay. All local hotel rooms were full and Mrs Henning at Liston Rectory had only limited room - just enough space to accommodate Price and his secretary. Furthermore, relations between Price and Glanville at that time were on a business rather than an acquaintance level, as is obvious from the tone of their correspondence.
Another serious allegation made against Price in connection with the excavations was that he had planted the bones found beneath the cellar passageway in 1943. First of all, he was physically unable to indulge in any such activity, for by that time he was even having difficulty in walking. The digging at Borley was done by Mr Jackson, a local labourer, assisted by the Rector, Mr Henning, under Price's authority, which in turn was the result of permission from Captain W. H. Gregson who was planning to sell the ruin for demolition.
One of the claims made by Messrs Dingwall, Goldney and Hall also was that there was supposedly proof of Price's dishonesty regarding the bones, in that later examination of the cellars revealed the remains of a battery lighting set, the inference of this find being that he had put them there.
However, like so many of the accusations against Price, this amounts to precious little when one learns that Captain Gregson often showed visitors round the ruined Rectory, and it was made clear by Robert Hastings that it was very likely Gregson who installed the battery lighting to aid such tours.
The medals found with the bones were another source of complaint by Price's critics, for again he was accused of having planted them. This point has already been dealt with earlier, in referring to the fact that in spite of an avid interest in English coins and tokens Price was not interested in foreign articles of this sort. This coupled with the knowledge that he had lost his collection of coins some years before makes nonsense of that accusation.
It should be remembered that medals were found at the Rectory twice during the years of Price's investigation, once in 1929 and again in 1943. One medal in each case was foreign, French in fact, and here again, the critics accused Price of using these to build up the French Nun legend, which becomes ridiculous in the light of the fact that Price told the readers in his first book that he did not believe in such tales.
Price began his investigations in June 1929, and was still answering correspondence on Borley a few days before his death in 1948, a total of nearly 20 years' involvement in the case.
During the Foyster tenancy at the Rectory, he had become suspicious of Marianne's part in the saga, said so to Foyster and got shown the door for his pains. That row was the main reason for the gaps in his involvement with Borley. Later, in the light of Glanville's findings, Price's views changed, thus making nonsense of the duplicity accusations.
Two fair criticisms can, however, be made against Harry Price's work at Borley. In my opinion, Price did not carry out enough scientific work at Borley Rectory. There were some minor experiments with various bits of equipment such as Bellamy's electrical contact breaker, which was triggered off by falling books, but the place really ought to have been covered with every reliable piece of scientific equipment that could be obtained, and monitored constantly.
It is also clear that Price did not devote anything like enough effort to the historical possibilities beyond Georgina Dawson's theories and the intriguing scenario of Canon Pythian Adams, something that I wil
l attempt to deal with later.
However, I do feel that Price's involvement in Borley Rectory and his lengthy investigation, so far as it went, was not dishonest and that, furthermore, Price presented his case in good faith. No doubt the arguments will rumble on for many years, but the foregoing comments, apart from relating his work to the newcomer, also present the considered opinions of the author, based on the available evidence.
Before we move on, there is one other matter to which some attention should be given. At the beginning of this chapter, details have been provided that include the place of Price's birth as London. Many people for long believed that Harry Price was born in Shrewsbury, and initially the writer also thought so.
Those familiar with the work of Price will probably be aware of the claim by Trevor Hall that Price invented a Shrewsbury background and birthplace, knowing this to be demonstrably false. I have carried out an extensive investigation into this matter and find that the assumption that Price was born in Shrewsbury arose not from a deliberate invention by him (there would be no reason for this anyway), but from an apparent error on the part of his biographer, the late Dr Paul Tabori. The chain of evidence has revealed itself to be as follows:
1. In The Search for Harry Price, Hall asserts that Price was born at 37 Red Lion Square, Holborn, and that his mother, at the time she became pregnant, was under age. He also states that the Central Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths supplied him with Price's birth certificate as proof of Price's lies.
2. Unable to locate proof of Price having been born in Shrewsbury, I referred back to the Registrar General and applied for a search, detailing in the application both the London birth claim, for 37 Red Lion Square, and the popular belief that Price came from Shrewsbury. The Registrar General's Office searched both 1881 and two years either side of that year, before informing the writer that they were unable to trace a certificate for a Harry Price or even a Henry Price anywhere in that five-year span. So perhaps his certificate has been lost in the archives, perhaps during the transfer of the department from its former home in Somerset House.
3. Hall castigates Price for stating that his father was a Shrewsbury paper manufacturer, when supposedly he was an unemployed London shopkeeper. Hall goes on to claim that there was no paper mill in Shrewsbury, or any trace of a Price in any Shropshire papermaking establishment. However, he omits to relate the existence of paper merchants Cox & Wright at Shoplatch, near Shrewsbury, and also fails to mention the existence of a paper mill at Tibberton, which lies very close to Crudgington.
4. In a collection of newspaper cuttings in the Harry Price Library, I found one concerning an interview with Harry between the wars, in which he states quite plainly that he was born in London, though his family had a long association with Shropshire.
5. Because in his Confessions of a Ghost Hunter Price recalled watching 'Sequah', an Indian medicine man, performing in Shrewsbury market, I contacted the Wellcome Foundation that has in its possession an archive on Sequah, which is in itself a fascinating story.
Sequah, as he first existed, was William Henry Harvey, and in spite of often claiming to be American, he is believed to have come originally from Yorkshire. The Sequah medicine man routine, performed round the country from a gaudily gilded and decorated horse-drawn wagon was not one man but several. To capitalise on his initial success, Harvey founded a company of these travelling medicine men, all of whom were entitled 'Sequah', and who had to face a steadily increasing battle with copiers of the quack medicine routine, until the company, Sequah Limited, finally ceased operations. Ultimately, of course, medicine selling of this kind, and the often-dangerous dentistry also carried out at these shows, was made illegal.
All this took place during a period when Price was a small boy, and from William Shupbach, of the Wellcome Foundation, the writer learned that a 'Sequah' did visit Shrewsbury, so young Price was quoting a childhood memory of seeing a spectacle that obviously made a great impression.
6. One other cutting in particular is of interest. It consists of a handbill for an open day to be held at Tibberton School, about 1908, and to which Harry Price was invited to give a phonograph demonstration. Tibberton Paper Mill and Cox & Wright, the paper merchants, were both functioning during the late 1880s.
7. It is obvious that Price as a small boy spent a lot of time in Shropshire. His grandfather had at one time owned a large house at Rowton, which is in High Ercall parish, as also then was Crudgington, and the possibility is, that unless those stays in Crudgington were only for holidays, young Price may have attended Tibberton School, which would be one reason for being invited back later to one of the school's open days. It is also quite within the realms of probability that Edward Ditcher Price, Harry's father, held some connection with Tibberton Mill.
8. Price relates how he was virtually apprenticed to his father in the paper trade. Long years afterwards, Price's closest associate in the Borley story, and his near neighbour for many years, Sidney Glanville, told Paul Tabori that Price had an extensive knowledge of the paper-making business. It must be pretty obvious that this knowledge came from his father, thus vindicating another part of Price's own statements about his background. Further proof of Harry Price's knowledge of the paper business exists in the drawings of a paper-corrugating machine that he designed.
As far as the writer is able to discover, the one place where Harry Price is stated to have been born in Shrewsbury is in Paul Tabori's biography of him. A probable reason for this is that Tabori misunderstood the Shropshire links with Price's family, misinterpreted also Price's description of the Sequah spectacle, thinking this referred to the day Price was born, and thus wrongly created the error that has persisted ever since.
To assist my search for reliable information, I enlisted the help of a local researcher in Shrewsbury, Mrs Desarka Davies, who duly searched the Tibberton School records, and also made local enquiries with regard to the registers of Crudgington School. In the Tibberton records, she could not locate Harry Price. In the case of Crudgington, an initial quick search was made by the headmistress, Mrs Corbett-Jones, again without finding a Harry Price, but in this case Mrs Davies was of the opinion that something could have been missed, and a closer check might be advisable.
Mrs Davies also failed to locate references to Edward Ditcher Price in what little local information is available about Tibberton Paper Mill. As this mill was subsequently in the hands of a firm in Birmingham, as was another paper mill at Great Bolas, it seemed that here again, this aspect should be further investigated.
However, on one important point, Mrs Davies did indeed score a hit! In an old copy of the Shrewsbury Chronicle for Friday, November 1, 1889, there was a poster advertising the arrival of 'Sequah' in Shrewsbury. The only point on which this differed from Price's stated memory of 'Sequah' was that, whereas Price recalled having watched him in Market Square, the bill poster gave the location as a plot adjacent to the Abbey Foregate.
It should be realised that Price's memory of this event, as he told it in Search for Truth, was related in 1940, some 50 or more years later! Furthermore, it is quite probable that the medicine man would have paraded his gilded wagon through the streets of Shrewsbury on arrival, and very likely passed by the Market Square, where a considerable crowd of people would have collected.
This find by Mrs Davies provided an essential piece of evidence that turns Price's memory of a possibility into a certainty that he did indeed witness Sequah in Shrewsbury.
To conclude this investigation into a period of Harry Price's life, it remains to link in with his father's paper trade background, but before giving these details there remains the matter of Crudgington School. The writer himself contacted the headmistress, Mrs Corbett-Jones, and asked her to make a thorough check of the registers for the 1880s. She could not find any mention of a Harry or Henry Price.
And so to the paper trade links. The paper mill at Tibberton, started by a local owner, was later sold to a firm from Birmingham, Martin B
illings & Co. of Livery Street, who also owned the paper mill at nearby Great Bolas. The writer was provided with evidence of the existence of Tibberton Mill by the Guildhall Library in London, and they suggested contact with Birmingham City Library in any attempt to trace Martin Billings & Co.
This the writer did, but only to discover that no records of the company have survived. We are therefore left with only one possible chain of evidence that could tie up with the few documented facts.
Hall claims that Edward Price was a commercial traveller. The writer suggests that Edward Ditcher Price may have been an agent for the paper-making industry, and in that capacity may very well have been in close association with companies such as Billings. In any event, to have functioned as a sales agent of some kind in connection with this trade, Edward Ditcher Price would certainly have needed a sound working knowledge of the industry.
The other possibility is that Edward Ditcher Price owned or managed a paper trade company in London, rather than in Shropshire, which would explain why evidence of him cannot be found in business archives relating to Shropshire. It does seem that the links with Shropshire were more to do with family rather than business. There is also, of course, the possibility that Edward Ditcher Price was involved in specialist hand-made paper production, as until relatively recently there were various tiny enterprises of this kind throughout the country.
One final observation concerns young Harry Price's attendance at Haberdashers' Aske's School. If, as Hall alleges, Edward Ditcher Price was an out-of-work London shopkeeper, where did he find the money for young Harry Price's school fees? True, he might have won a scholarship to go there, but then he did remain there for five years or so, and the writer cannot help but observe that Trevor Hall's attempted demolition of Price's reputation is itself a doubtful exercise, and does little to reveal the truth of the matter. In the final analysis, only one person knew the truth of the entire sequence of events, and that man took his life's mysteries with him to the grave in March 1948!