Ernest Clephan Palmer (1883 – 4 July 1954) was a British author,

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and

psychical researcher Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near ...

Biography

Palmer was born in

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...

and worked for forty years as an editor for the '' Daily News'' and the ''

News Chronicle The ''News Chronicle'' was a British daily newspaper. Formed by the merger of '' The Daily News'' and the '' Daily Chronicle'' in 1930, it ceased publication on 17 October 1960,''Liberal Democrat News'' 15 October 2010, accessed 15 October 2010 b ...

''. For twenty-three years Palmer was a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery and its Chairman in 1951.Johnson, Sally Patrick. (1962). ''Everyman's Ark: A Collection of True First-person Accounts of Relationships Between Animals and Men''. Harper. p. 60 Throughout his career he also worked for the ''West Sussex Gazette'', the '' Daily Express'', the ''Morning Leader'' and the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...

''. Palmer was Parliamentary Correspondent for the ''News Chronicle'' and with the support of his friend Arthur Conan Doyle was involved in solving the Oscar Slater case by securing Slater's release twenty years after his conviction. He served in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

and

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...

in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

. He married Claudine Pattie Sapey, they had two sons. His son Peter Clephan Palmer was awarded the C.B.E. Palmer was interested in

animal welfare Animal welfare is the well-being of non-human animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures such as longevit ...

. His book ''The Solitary Blackbird'' published in 1954 described his and his wife's experiences in caring for a young blackbird.

Psychical research

Palmer was interested in psychical research and

spiritualism Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase) ...

, he was a friend of the psychical investigator

Harry Price Harry Price (17 January 1881 – 29 March 1948) was a British psychic researcher and author, who gained public prominence for his investigations into psychical phenomena and exposing fraudulent spiritualist mediums. He is best known for ...

. In his book ''The Riddle of Spiritualism'' published in 1927, Palmer came to the conclusion that most

mediumship Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spir ...

and phenomena observed in the

séance A séance or seance (; ) is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word ''séance'' comes from the French word for "session", from the Old French ''seoir'', "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, spea ...

is the result of fraud, however, he believed

telepathy Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic ...

to explain some cases of mental mediumship. He wrote there is no scientific evidence for the spirit hypothesis in mediumship but the question of survival should still be kept open.Palmer, E. Clephan. (1927). ''The Riddle of Spiritualism''. Kessinger publishing. pp. 129-146.

Publications

*''The Riddle of Spiritualism'' (1927) *''The Young Blackbird'' (1953) *''The Solitary Blackbird'' (1954)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Palmer, E. Clephan 1883 births 1954 deaths 20th-century British non-fiction writers British male journalists British newspaper editors Parapsychologists Writers from Ipswich

Biography

Psychical research

Publications

See also

References