This post closes today’s MonSFFA e-meeting. 

10) COTTINGLEY FAIRIES

In 1917, cousins Elsie Wright, aged 16, and Frances Griffiths, aged 9, lived in the English village of Cottingley, near Bradford, West Yorkshire, and claimed to have seen and photographed tiny fairies dancing amid the foliage around Cottingley Beck, a brook near their home.

Belief in things supernatural, like ghosts and fairies, were widespread in the early years of the 20th century, especially in English-speaking countries, and many high-profile citizens were adherents of Spiritualism, not the least of whom was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, prolific author of the popular Sherlock Holmes stories published in The Strand Magazine. Doyle, in fact, took an interest in the girls’ claims and interpreted their photographs as clear evidence of supernatural phenomena. His view was shared by many, but not all, with detractors pegging the pictures as clever fakes. Elsie and Frances maintained that they had seen fairies, and that their photographs were genuine.

Doyle, meanwhile, had secured permission to use the photographs to illustrate a magazine article he was writing about fairies, while associate Edward Gardner, a leading member of the Theosophical Society, an organization of Occultists, arranged for the cousins to take more pictures of the fairies in 1920. The tiny creatures would not show themselves if other than they two girls were watching, Elsie and Frances cautioned, so they were left to their own devices, returning later from the beck with fresh photographs.

Gardner and Doyle had a number of experts examine the photographs to determine if there was anything amiss, and were met with mixed opinion. But several of the experts had judged that no tampering with the photographic plates had occurred, noting, however, that this did not necessarily provide proof positive that fairies were real. The camera had simply recorded what was before the lens, and the fairies could have been paper dolls or some such positioned on branches and leaves.

Over the years, interest in the Cottingley Fairies waxed and waned, with later investigations launched to get at the truth of the matter, until finally, Elsie and Frances, now elderly women, put the question to rest in 1983, confessing that the whole thing had been a fraud. Their fairies were nothing more than drawings on cardboard rendered by the artistically inclined Elsie, copying illustrations of dancing girls in a children’s book of the day. She had drawn in wings, cut out the figures, propped them up in the garden with hatpins, and voilà: fairies!

Still, Frances insisted that they had actually seen the fairies, and unlike the others pictures, the last photograph taken was bona fide. Elsie did not concur, and remembered that the two felt embarrassed, at the time, to admit the truth, having fooled so many, including a brilliant man like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!  “I can’t understand to this day why they were taken in—they wanted to be taken in.”

Both women died in the late-1980s. Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Book (1994), by Terry Jones and Brian Froud, parodied their famous images, and prints of their photographs, along with the cameras used, and other associated material, now reside in the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford.

11) THANK YOU!

We sincerely hope you have enjoyed your time with us these past few hours and encourage you to visit www.MonSFFA.ca regularly for additional content.

We thank Kofi Oduro, Danny Sichel, Keith Braithwaite, and Cathy Palmer-Lister for their contributions to today’s programme. Thanks is extended, also, to all of our supporting contributors this afternoon.

And of course, to all who joined us today and took in our online get-together, we thank you for your interest and attention, and remind you to leave a comment!

12) NEXT MonSFFA e-MEETING

As club members are aware, our hoped-for return to in-person MonSFFA meetings has been stalled by lingering pandemic-related circumstances! We continue our search for an available, affordable meeting hall and are currently exploring a couple of new possibilities; we’ll keep you updated as to any notable progress.

And so, join us next month, on Saturday, June 17, beginning at 1:00PM, right here at www.MonSFFA.ca, for another in our series of MonSFFA e-meetings! We’ve booked a special guest speaker for the occasion who we think you will enjoy!

Please take note that we’ve moved this e-meeting from our usual second-Saturday-of-the-month one week ahead to the third Saturday so as to avoid conflicting with Scintillation, a local SF convention taking place this year over the June 9-11 weekend.

Also, note that a social event is open to MonSFFen, said event scheduled for Saturday, June 10. Any MonSFFen not attending Scintillation are welcome to attend this casual affair, which will take place from 2:00PM-6:00PM at the same West Island address that served as our 2022 Christmas Luncheon locale. (We will post on the site information about this event in the coming weeks; check back regularly!)

13) SIGN-OFF 

Until June, then, bask in the sunny, warm weather we’ve been experiencing of late, quaff a cold one, and keep well.