Frederick Bligh Bond | |
|---|---|
 Frederick Bligh Bond in 1921 | |
| Born | 30 June 1864 Marlborough,Wiltshire, England |
| Died | 8 March 1945 (1945-03-09) (aged 80) Dolgellau,Merionethshire, Wales |
| Occupation(s) | Architect andpsychical researcher |
| Employer(s) | Church of England,American Society for Psychical Research |
Frederick Bligh Bond (30 June 1864 – 8 March 1945),[1] was an Englisharchitect,illustrator,archaeologist,psychical researcher and member of theSocietas Rosicruciana in Anglia.
Bligh Bond was the son of the Rev. Frederick Hookey Bond. He was born in theWiltshire town ofMarlborough. His family was related toWilliam Bligh, through his nephewFrancis Godolphin Bond, Bligh Bond's grandfather. He was also a cousin ofSabine Baring-Gould.[2] He was educated at home by his father, who was headmaster of theMarlborough Royal Free Grammar School.[3] His brother,Francis George Bond, became a major general in the British Army.
He practised as an architect inBristol from 1888. His work includes schools, such as theboard schools inBarton Hill,Easton, andSouthville, Greenbank Elementary School and St George's School. He designed the schools of medicine and engineering atBristol University and the Music School ofClifton College. He also undertook a number of domestic commissions for theKing's Weston estate ofPhilip Napier Miles, including a number of substantial houses inShirehampton, the Miles Arms public house in Avonmouth, the now-demolished King's Weston estate office and the public hall in Shirehampton.[4]Cossham Memorial Hospital is also an example of his work.[5] The style of his mature works in the Edwardian years might be described as English Baroque or Queen Anne Revival. In addition he oversaw the restoration of a number of churches, became an acknowledged authority on the history of church architecture, and in 1909 published, with DomBede Camm, a two-volume treatise entitledRoodscreens and Roodlofts.[6]
As early as 1899 Bligh Bond had expressed his belief that the dimensions of the buildings at Glastonbury Abbey were based ongematria,[4] and in 1917 he published, with Thomas Simcox Lea,Gematria, A Preliminary Investigation of the Cabala contained in the Coptic Gnostic Books and of a similar Gematria in the Greek text of the New Testament, which incorporated his own previously published paper,The Geometric Cubit as a Basis of Proportion in the Plans of Mediaeval Buildings.[1]
In 1908 theChurch of England appointed him director of excavations atGlastonbury Abbey.[4] Before he was dismissed by BishopArmitage Robinson in 1921, his excavations rediscovered the nature and dimensions of a number of buildings that had occupied the site.[2][4] Bond's work at Glastonbury Abbey is one of the first documented examples ofpsychic archaeology. Bond with the retired navy Captain John Allan Bartlett ("John Alleyne") as a medium claimed to have contacted throughautomatic writing dead monks and the builder of the Edgar Chapel at Glastonbury, who advised him where to excavate.[7][8][9]
In 1919 he publishedThe Gates of Remembrance, which revealed that he had employed psychical methods to guide his excavation of the Glastonbury ruins. As a consequence of these revelations his relations with his employers, who strongly disapproved ofspiritualism, deteriorated and he was sacked in 1921.[9][10]
Archaeologists andskeptics have found Bond's claims dubious.[11]Joseph McCabe suggested that Alleyne and Bond had "steeped themselves, all through the year 1907, in the literature of the subject. They read all that was known about Glastonbury, and lived for months in the medieval atmosphere."[12]
In 1922 Rev. H. J. Wilkins published a detailed criticism of Bond's psychical claims. Wilkins concluded "there is absolutely nothing supermundane in the whole of the script... All that is true in the script could be gathered from historical data or reasonably conjectured by intelligent observation of existing facts and conditions."[13]
ArchaeologistKenneth Feder commented that the "tall church towers, whose existence and locations we are to believe were provided by spirits, actually were recorded and located in a historical document Bond almost surely had already seen. Beyond this, an early drawing of the abbey, and even structural remains visible on the surface, provided clues as to the location of these towers."[8]
Feder also noted that "there was no scientific controls whatsoever" and that it is impossible to tell whether he was actually advised by spirits or whether his expertise in church architecture and information from early drawings helped him locate the chapels he discovered.[14][15]
In a series of articles published inThe Skeptic,Chris French discusses in depth the possibility Bond's automatic writing may have instead been the result of theideomotor effect andfacilitated communication which was influenced by Alleyne.[16][17] French also outlines a study which indicates Bond and Alleyne may have already been aware of the information they communicated in the writings but did not realise it at the time.[18]
Bligh joined theFreemasons in 1889, theTheosophical Society in 1895, theSociety for Psychical Research in 1902, theSocietas Rosicruciana in Anglia in 1909[19] andthe Ghost Club in 1925.
From 1921 to 1926 he was editor ofPsychic Science (then namedQuarterly Transactions of the British College of Psychic Science).[20]
In 1926 he emigrated to the US, where he was employed as education secretary of theAmerican Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) and worked as editor on their magazine,Survival.[1] Bligh Bond broke with the ASPR and returned toBritain in 1936,[2] also rejoining the Ghost Club in the process, after supporting accusations against the mediumMina Crandon that she had fraudulently produced thumbprints on wax that she presented as being produced by the spirit of her dead brother, Walter.[1]
During his time in the USA Bond was ordained, and in 1933 consecrated as a bishop, in theOld Catholic Church of America.[1]
He returned to the United Kingdom in 1935,[21] spending his time inLondon andDolgellau,Merionethshire, where he died of a heart attack.[22][23]
Bond is mentioned as part of the background toDeborah Crombie's mystery novelA Finer End (Bantam, 2001).ISBN 0-553-57927-4
On 30 December 2008 Bligh Bond was the subject of aChannel 4 documentary,The Ghosts of Glastonbury, hosted byTony Robinson, which examined Bligh Bond's claims that he received archaeological information throughautomatic writing from deceased monks.
