Sir William Barrett: Tributes and Appreciations
Sir William Barrett: Tributes and Appreciations is an article published in Light on 13 june 1925.
Sir William Barrett: Tributes and Appreciations
From Sir Oliver Lodge
Sir William Barrett was nearly the oldest of the surviving psychic pioneers, a man of long and ripe experience, a keen worker and a stimulator of work in others, and in his removal many readers of LIGHT will feel that they have lost a friend.
He combined professional knowledge of Physical Science with a keen enthusiasm for the exploration of unknown or unrecognised human faculties, and he lived to see this branch of knowledge and inquiry emerge from obscurity, pass through a period of contumely and ridicule, and become established as a reasonable subject for careful and cautious investigation.
He liked to be thought of as the discoverer of telepathy, believing that that curious faculty would hereafter be hailed as a fact of the utmost importance in relation to the mysterious connection between mind and matter. The minor discoveries which he valued were such as sensitive flames, certain useful alloys, and the calorescence of iron.
He is honoured both by the Physical Society and the Society for Psychical Research, which latter he helped to found and of which he was for a time the President.
His personality was marked by a quick almost feverish enthusiasm, and a tendency to complain of the attitude or procedure of others; but his platform utterances, whether in the form of papers or popular lectures, were always acceptable and attractive.
The happiness and contentment of his later years — those which followed his marriage — were very marked,, and all must rejoice that he had this peaceful and happy time before entering upon the further expanded duties which doubt-less await him now that he has rejoined so many of his old friends and co-workers
OLIVER LODGE.
From Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir William Barrett will always remain as a beautiful memory to those who knew him. He had in a peculiar degree the spirit of a young man-almost of a boy-in his frail body. His mind retained this quality of youth to the end, and was open to new impressions and accessible to reason in a way which showed how plastic and vital it had remained. He was conservative by nature, hesitating long before he made a fresh step forward, but the spiritual urge was always upon him and he ended, as we know, by a complete acceptance of this position as regards survival and communication. He was a brave pioneer for he was the first, so far as I know, to stand up in a learned assembly and assert the existence of psychic forces. I remember his telling me as a remarkable fact that the only four men who supported him on that occasion all received the O.M. Their names, if I am not mistaken, were Russel Wallace, Crookes, Lord Rayleigh, and Huggins. It is a sad thought that this was in 1876, and that the world is still as ignorant.
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.
Windlesham, Crowborough, Sussex.
From the Hon. Everard Feilding
The death of my old friend will leave a great blank in the circle of those associated with him in the work which, perhaps increasingly of late years, has occupied so much of his attention. Though his attitude towards it differed considerably from many of them, and his experience, coloured, it may be, by his optimistic and charitable temperament, led him further in the way of acceptance than theirs, his readiness to listen to opposing views and the courteous deference he paid to criticism, even when based on knowledge only a tithe of his own, made conversation with him, illuminated as it always was by useful illustrations from his rich store of recollections, a thing of deep pleasure and interest. To add that I am indebted to him for many personal courtesies and kindnesses is, I am convinced, only to relate an experience which must have been that of almost everyone with whom he came into any kind of close contact.
EVERARD FEILDING.
