| Frederick Bligh Bond | |
|---|---|
Frederick Bligh Bond in 1921 |
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| Born | 30 June 1864 Marlborough |
| Died | 8 March 1945 Dolgellau |
| Occupation | Architect and Psychical researcher |
| Employer | Church of England, American Society for Psychical Research |
| Religion | Spiritualism and Old Catholic Church |
Frederick Bligh Bond (30 June 1864 – 8 March 1945)[1] was an English architect, illustrator, archaeologist, and psychical researcher.
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Bligh Bond was the son of the Rev. Frederick Hookey Bond, born in the Wiltshire town of Marlborough. His family was related to William Bligh, through his nephew Francis Godolphin Bond, Bligh Bond's grandfather. He was also a cousin of Sabine Baring-Gould.[2] He was educated at home by his father, who was headmaster of Marlborough Royal Free Grammar School.[3]
He practised as an architect in Bristol from 1888. His work includes schools, such as the Board Schools in Barton Hill, Easton, and Southville, Greenbank Elementary School and St George's School. He designed the schools of medicine and engineering at Bristol University and the Music School of Clifton College. He also undertook a number of domestic commissions, and a public hall in Shirehampton.[4] Cossham Memorial Hospital is also an example of his work.[5] 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 Dom Bede Camm, a two volume treatise entitled Roodscreens and Roodlofts.[6]
In 1908 the Church of England appointed him as director of excavations at Glastonbury Abbey.[4] Before he was dismissed by Bishop Armitage Robinson in 1921, his excavations rediscovered the nature and dimensions of a number of buildings that had occupied the site.[2][4] His work at Glastonbury Abbey is considered one of the earliest successes in psychic archaeology.
Bligh joined the Freemasons in 1889, the Theosophical Society in 1895, the Society for Psychical Research in 1902, the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia in 1909[7] and the Ghost Club in 1925. As early as 1899 Bligh Bond had expressed his belief that the dimensions of the buildings at Glastonbury Abbey were based on gematria,[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 1919 he published The Gates of Remembrance, which revealed that he had employed psychical methods to guide his excavation of the Glastonbury ruins, using first Captain John Allan Bartlett (‘John Alleyne’) as a medium, and later others. As a consequence of these revelations his relations with his employers, who strongly disapproved of spiritualism, deteriorated, and he was sacked in 1921.[2]
From 1921 to 1926 he was editor of Psychic Science.
In 1926 Bligh Bond emigrated to the USA, where he was employed as education secretary of the American Society for Psychical Research and worked as editor on their magazine, Survival.[1] Bligh Bond broke with the ASPR and returned to England in 1936,[2] also rejoining the Ghost Club in the process, after supporting accusations against the medium Mina 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 the Old Catholic Church of America.[1]
He returned to the United Kingdom in 1935, spending his time in London and Dolgellau, where he died of a heart attack.
Bond is mentioned as part of the background to Deborah Crombie's mystery novel A Finer End (Bantam, 2001). ISBN 0-553-57927-4
On 30 December 2008 Bligh Bond was the subject of a Channel 4 documentary, The Ghosts of Glastonbury, hosted by Tony Robinson, which examined Bligh Bond's claims that he received archaeological information through automatic writing from deceased monks.