The Base Room - Contents Page of the Harry Price Website

The Base Room

Photograph of Harry Price, probably taken during the 1930s (Mary Evans Picture Library)

Welcome

Welcome to the Base Room, the contents page of harrypricewebsite.co.uk. This page is so named after the title given to the former library at Borley Rectory in Essex, England which was used as a centre of operations when it was rented for a year by Harry Price in 1937 in what was to be the most famous & controversial case of his entire career.

About This Website

This site is intended to be a resource of information on the internet about the extraordinary personality that was Harry Price (1881-1948) - psychic researcher, bibliophile, numismatist, conjuror, engineer & photographer - essentially the father of modern popular ghost-hunting that we know today. It is not intended to be an 'official' website in any way, more a tribute to Price by presenting his life and work through a medium that if he were alive today no doubt he would have utilised himself in the same way that he used radio to broadcast and publicise his work back in the 1930s and 1940s. The real centre for Harry Price studies is the Harry Price Collection, the entire contents of his files on the many cases & investigations he was involved with, which was bequeathed to the University of London by Price himself & is housed in the Senate House in London, home also to the Harry Price Library, the most important collection of occult & magical literature in the world. This website is not connected with the HPL or associated with the University of London in any way. This website has no official views and in putting these pages together I have tried to avoid siding with either Price or his detractors where possible - Harry Price was a controversial figure during his lifetime & this controversy continues to the present day. Here you will find the facts about his life and times. Any opinions where expressed are those of the particular authors or commentators in question including myself.

The website is divided up into sections which can be accessed by clicking on the links opposite. These sections fall into roughly three broad categories - Price himself, his work & cases and writings, both by Price & about him. In the Biography section you will find a short resume of Price's life that covers the principle events of his varied career. An ongoing project will be the detailed biography which draws on many varied sources to provide a comprehensive portrait of the life & times of Harry Price. The intention here is to include in this main biography any pertinent articles & essays contributed by website visitors. Another work in progress is the Timeline which tabulates Price's life as well as simultaneously charting the relevant events which affected him & his work. The Gallery is a collection of photographs & images of Harry Price collected from a wide variety of published & unpublished sources.

During the course of his career, Price made many friends & equally many enemies, as any successful person is bound to do. The Profiles section is an attempt to provide concise biographies of the people that played a part in the overall picture of Price's life. It includes people who were his contemporaries in the fields of psychical research - colleagues & collaborators as well as rivals, critics & detractors. There are also entries for the people that followed on in the fields of Price's work after his death, again the supporters who were influenced by him as well as the sceptics who derided him. The Séance Room is an important section of the website devoted to the many years that Price spent in the field of spiritualism. Here you will find information on the founding of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, the many fake psychics & fraudulent mediums that crossed his path as well as the cases that impressed him, such as Stella C and Rudi Schneider. Harry Price was a tremendously active man & travelled widely. In the Famous Cases section are all the notorious adventures which he had abroad such as the famous Blocksberg tryst as well as cases nearer to home - the Battersea poltergeist, the Talking Mongoose and the spirit child Rosalie to name but a few.

The driveway at Borley Rectory photographed in 1937 by Sidney Glanville (Colour restoration by Steven Wiltshire)

The alleged haunting of Borley Rectory deserves its own section. This Mount Everest in the history of haunted houses occupied Price intermittently for nearly the last two decades of his life and has proved to be the most notorious & controversial case he dealt with. In this section you will find everything connected with the so-called 'Most Haunted House in England' - a history of the Borley haunting & Price's involvement in it, his tenancy of the building and the books he wrote about it, as well as the highly critical report by the Society for Psychical Research and its effect on Price's reputation in the years following his death in 1948. Such is the appeal of the story of Borley Rectory that it continues to fascinate to this day & this section of the website will also deal with modern Borley and what is being carried out today that sheds light on what went on there in the past & Harry Price's involvement in it.

Price published several books and many articles during the course of his career and there are two corresponding sections which look at Harry Price the prolific writer and journalist - Books By Price and Writings By Price, the latter section contains another on-going project to compile an Online Library of all Price's published essays, articles & reviews on the many subjects which interested him over the years. Price was also the subject of published works himself and details of these, both supportive & critical can be found in Books About Price. I have felt it might be useful to visitors to this site to include a Bibliography of related books & literature on subjects related to the many varied interests of Price as well as a Links page to related websites. The About This Site link provides information on the background and reasons for the setting up of this website.

Comments on the Website

The general contact e-mail for the website is mail@harrypricewebsite.co.uk. Include 'Harry Price' in the title but please get in touch with me before sending any attachments.

© 2004-2010 by Paul Adams & Eddie Brazil. All original text, photographs & graphics used throughout this website are copyright 2009 by Paul Adams & Eddie Brazil. All other material reproduced here is the copyright of the respective authors.