Frederick Bligh Bond
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Frederick Bligh Bond (30 June 1864 – 8 March 1945), was an English
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
,
illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicate ...
,
archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...
, psychical researcher and member of the
Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (Rosicrucian Society of England) or SRIA is a Rosicrucian esoteric Christianity, esoteric Christian order formed by Robert Wentworth Little between 1865King 1989, page 28 and 1867. While the SRIA is not a Masonic ...
.


Early life

Bligh Bond was the son of the Rev. Frederick Hookey Bond. He was born in the
Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...
town of
Marlborough Marlborough or the Marlborough may refer to: Places Australia * Marlborough, Queensland * Principality of Marlborough, a short-lived micronation in 1993 * Marlborough Highway, Tasmania; Malborough was an historic name for the place at the sou ...
. His family was related to
William Bligh William Bligh (9 September 1754 – 7 December 1817) was a Vice-admiral (Royal Navy), Royal Navy vice-admiral and colonial administrator who served as the governor of New South Wales from 1806 to 1808. He is best known for his role in the Muti ...
, through his nephew
Francis Godolphin Bond Francis Godolphin Bond (23 January 1765 – 26 October 1839, Exeter) was a Rear-Admiral in the British Royal Navy. He was a nephew of William Bligh and grandfather of Frederick Bligh Bond. He sailed as Bligh's First Lieutenant on HMS Providence, Bl ...
, Bligh Bond's grandfather. He was also a cousin of
Sabine Baring-Gould Sabine Baring-Gould (; 28 January 1834 – 2 January 1924) of Lew Trenchard in Devon, England, was an Anglican priest, hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist, folk song collector and eclectic scholar. His bibliography consists of more than 1,240 pu ...
. (Free registration required) He was educated at home by his father, who was headmaster of the
Marlborough Royal Free Grammar School Marlborough Royal Free Grammar School, previously known as Marlborough Grammar School and King Edward's School, Marlborough, was a grammar school in the town of Marlborough, in Wiltshire, England, founded in 1550. Originally for boys only, the s ...
. His brother,
Francis George Bond Major-General Sir Francis George Bond, (10 August 1856 – 15 August 1930) was a British Army officer who served with the Royal Engineers in various campaigns in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He was a keen amateur sportsman, who played foo ...
, became a major general in the British Army.


Architectural practice

He practised as an architect in
Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...
from 1888. His work includes schools, such as the
board school School boards were ''ad hoc'' public bodies in England and Wales that existed between 1870 and 1902, and established and administered Elementary school (England and Wales), elementary schools. Creation The Elementary Education Act 1870 (33 & ...
s 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 The University of Bristol is a public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Bristol, which had ...
and the Music School of
Clifton College Clifton College is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in the city of Bristol in South West England, founded in 1862 and offering both boarding school, boarding and day school for pupils aged 13–18. In its early years, unlike mo ...
. He also undertook a number of domestic commissions for the
King's Weston Kingsweston or Kings Weston is a suburban neighbourhood in the city of Bristol, England. It is located in the northwest of the city, in the Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston electoral ward and the Bristol North West parliamentary constituency. The ...
estate of
Philip Napier Miles Philip Napier Miles (21 January 1865 – 19 July 1935) was a philanthropist and musician in Bristol, and a descendent of the Napier family. He was High Sheriff of Gloucestershire for 1916–17. Life and family He was the only son of Philip ...
, including a number of substantial houses in
Shirehampton Shirehampton is a district of Bristol in England, near Avonmouth, at the northwestern edge of the city. It originated as a separate village, retains a High Street with a parish church and shops, and is still thought of as a village by many of ...
, the Miles Arms public house in Avonmouth, the now-demolished King's Weston estate office and the public hall in Shirehampton. Cossham Memorial Hospital is also an example of his work. 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 Dom
Bede Camm Dom Bede Camm, O.S.B., (26 December 1864 – 8 September 1942) was an English Benedictine monk and martyrologist. He is best known for his many works on the English Catholic martyrs, which helped to keep their memories alive in the newly reeme ...
, a two-volume treatise entitled ''Roodscreens and Roodlofts''.


Glastonbury excavations

As early as 1899 Bligh Bond had expressed his belief that the dimensions of the buildings at Glastonbury Abbey were based on
gematria In numerology, gematria (; or , plural or ) is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word, or phrase by reading it as a number, or sometimes by using an alphanumeric cipher. The letters of the alphabets involved have standar ...
, 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''. In 1908 the
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
appointed him director of excavations at
Glastonbury Abbey Glastonbury Abbey was a monastery in Glastonbury, Somerset, England. Its ruins, a grade I listed building and scheduled ancient monument, are open as a visitor attraction. The abbey was founded in the 8th century and enlarged in the 10th. It wa ...
. Before he was dismissed by Bishop
Armitage Robinson Joseph Armitage Robinson (9 January 1858 – 7 May 1933) was a priest in the Church of England and scholar. He was successively Dean of Westminster (1902–1911) and of Wells (1911–1933). Biography Robinson was born the son of a poor vicar ...
in 1921, his excavations rediscovered the nature and dimensions of a number of buildings that had occupied the site. Bond's work at Glastonbury Abbey is one of the first documented examples of
psychic archaeology Psychic archaeology is a loose collection of practices involving the application of paranormal phenomena to problems in archaeology. It is not considered part of mainstream archaeology, or taught in academic institutions. It is difficult to test ...
. Bond with the retired navy Captain John Allan Bartlett ("John Alleyne") as a medium claimed to have contacted through
automatic writing Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged sp ...
dead monks and the builder of the Edgar Chapel at Glastonbury, who advised him where to excavate. Feder, Kenneth. ''Archaeology and the Paranormal''. In
Gordon Stein Gordon Stein (April 30, 1941 – August 27, 1996) was an American author, physiologist, and activist for atheism and religious skepticism. Biography Stein was born in New York to Jewish parents, and from an early age took an interest in science. ...
. (1996). ''The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal''. Prometheus Books. pp. 32-43.
Williams, William F. (2000). '' Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience: From Alien Abductions to Zone Therapy''. Facts on File Inc. p. 39. In 1919 he published ''The Gate 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 of
spiritualism Spiritualism may refer to: * Spiritual church movement, a group of Spiritualist churches and denominations historically based in the African-American community * Spiritualism (beliefs), a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at leas ...
, deteriorated and he was sacked in 1921. Archaeologists and
skeptics Skepticism ( US) or scepticism ( UK) is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...
have found Bond's claims dubious.
Joseph McCabe Joseph Martin McCabe (12 November 1867 – 10 January 1955) was an English writer and speaker on freethought, after having been a Roman Catholic priest earlier in his life. He was "one of the great mouthpieces of freethought in England". Becom ...
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." 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." Archaeologist
Kenneth Feder Kenneth L. "Kenny" Feder (born August 1, 1952) is an emeritus professor of archaeology at Central Connecticut State University and the author of several books on archaeology and criticism of pseudoarchaeology such as '' Frauds, Myths, and Myster ...
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." 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. In a series of articles published in '' The Skeptic'',
Chris French Christopher (Chris) Charles French (born 1956) is a British psychologist who is prominent in the field of anomalistic psychology, with a focus on the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. In addition to his academic activ ...
discusses in depth the possibility Bond's automatic writing may have instead been the result of the
ideomotor effect The ideomotor phenomenon is a psychological phenomenon wherein a subject makes motions unconsciously. Also called ideomotor response (or ideomotor reflex) and abbreviated to IMR, it is a concept in hypnosis and psychological research. It is der ...
and
facilitated communication Facilitated communication (FC), or supported typing, is a scientifically discredited technique which claims to allow non-verbal people, such as those with autism, to communicate. The technique involves a facilitator guiding the disabled person ...
which was influenced by Alleyne. 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.


Psychical research

Bligh joined the
Freemasons Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...
in 1889, the
Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society is the organizational body of Theosophy, an esoteric new religious movement. It was founded in New York City, U.S.A. in 1875. Among its founders were Helena Blavatsky, a Russian mystic and the principal thinker of the ...
in 1895, the
Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to condu ...
in 1902, the
Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (Rosicrucian Society of England) or SRIA is a Rosicrucian esoteric Christianity, esoteric Christian order formed by Robert Wentworth Little between 1865King 1989, page 28 and 1867. While the SRIA is not a Masonic ...
in 1909 and
the Ghost Club The Ghost Club is a paranormal investigation and research organization, founded in London in 1862. It is believed to be the oldest such organisation in the world, though its history has not been continuous. The club still investigates mainly gh ...
in 1925. From 1921 to 1926 he was editor of ''Psychic Science'' (then named ''Quarterly Transactions of the British College of Psychic Science''). In 1926 he emigrated to the US, where he was employed as education secretary of the
American Society for Psychical Research The American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) is the oldest psychical research organization in the United States dedicated to parapsychology. Until recently, it maintained offices and a library in New York City that were open to members and ...
(ASPR) and worked as editor on their magazine, ''Survival''. Bligh Bond broke with the ASPR and returned to
Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...
in 1936, also rejoining the Ghost Club in the process, after supporting accusations against the medium
Mina Crandon Mina 'Margery' Crandon (1888–November 1, 1941) was an American psychic medium who performed under the stage name 'Margery' and claimed to channel her dead brother, Walter Stinson. Investigators who studied Crandon concluded that she had no suc ...
that she had fraudulently produced thumbprints on wax that she presented as being produced by the spirit of her dead brother, Walter. During his time in the USA Bond was ordained, and in 1933 consecrated as a bishop, in the
Old Catholic Church The terms Old Catholic Church, Old Catholics, Old-Catholic churches, or Old Catholic movement, designate "any of the groups of Western Christians who believe themselves to maintain in complete loyalty the doctrine and traditions of the undiv ...
of America.


Later life

He returned to the United Kingdom in 1935, spending his time in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
and
Dolgellau Dolgellau (; ) is a town and Community (Wales), community in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, lying on the River Wnion, a tributary of the River Mawddach. It was the traditional county town of the Historic counties of Wales, historic county of Merion ...
,
Merionethshire Merionethshire, or Merioneth ( or '), was Historic counties of Wales, one of the thirteen counties of Wales that existed from 1536 until their abolishment in 1974. It was located in the North West Wales, north-west of Wales. Name 'Merioneth' is a ...
, where he died of a heart attack.


Legacy

Bond is mentioned as part of the background to
Deborah Crombie Deborah Crombie (''née'' Darden) is an American author of the Duncan Kincaid / Gemma James mystery series set in the United Kingdom. Crombie was raised in Richardson, Texas, and has lived in the United Kingdom. She now lives in McKinney, Texas ...
's mystery novel ''A Finer End'' (Bantam, 2001). On 30 December 2008 Bligh Bond was the subject of a
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
documentary, ''The Ghosts of Glastonbury'', hosted by
Tony Robinson Sir Anthony Robinson (born 15 August 1946) is an English actor, author, broadcaster, and political activist. He played Baldrick in the BBC television sitcom ''Blackadder'' and has presented many historical documentaries, including the Channel ...
, which examined Bligh Bond's claims that he received archaeological information through
automatic writing Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged sp ...
from deceased monks.


Publications

*Coates, Richard (2015
''Frederick Bligh Bond (1864–1945): A Bibliography of his writings and a list of his buildings''
;Authored by Bligh Bond
''An Architectural Handbook to Glastonbury Abbey''
(1909)
'' Roodscreens and Roodlofts''
(journal article, 1909)
''The Gate of Remembrance''
(1918)
''The Hill of Vision''
(Boston: Marshall Jones Co., 1918)
''The Company of Avalon''
''a study of the script of Brother Symon, sub-prior of Winchester abbey in the time of King Stephen'' (1924)
''The Gospel of Philip the Deacon''
(1932)
''The Secret of Immortality''
(1934) ;Co-authored by Bligh Bond: *Bligh Bond, F. & Camm, Rev. Dom Bede. ''Rood screens and rood lofts'' – 2 vols
Vol. I
â€
Vol. II
(London, 1909) *Bligh Bond, F. & Lea, Thomas Simcox.
Gematria: A Preliminary Investigation Of The Cabala Contained In The Coptic Gnostic Books
' (1917) *Bligh Bond, F. & Lea, Thomas Simcox.
Materials for the Study of the Apostolic Gnosis, Part I
' (1919) *Mantle, George E.
Glastonbury Abbey: Recent discoveries
' (G. E Mantle, n.d, c.1926) ;Illustrated by Bligh Bond: *Baring-Gould, S.
An Old English Home and its Dependencies
' (Methuen & Co, 1898).


References


Further reading

*Coates, Richard. (2015)
''Frederick Bligh Bond (1864-1945): A Bibliography of His Writings and a List of His Buildings''
Working Paper. University of the West of England (Research Repository), Bristol. * Feder, Kenneth. (1980). ''Psychic Archaeology: The Anatomy of Irrationalist Prehistoric Studies''. Skeptical Inquirer 4 (4): 32–43. *Hopkinson-Ball, Tim. (2007). ''The Rediscovery of Glastonbury''. The History Press Ltd. *Kenawell, William W. (1965). ''The Quest at Glastonbury. A Biographical Study of Frederick Bligh Bond''. Helix Press. *McKusick, Marshall. (1984). ''Psychic Archaeology from Atlantis to Oz''. Archaeology 37 (5): 48–52. *Schwartz, Stephan A. (1978). ''The Secret Vaults of Time. Psychic Archaeology and the Quest for Man's Beginnings.'' Grosset & Dunlap *Wilkins, Henry John. (1923). ''A Further Criticism of the Psychical Claims Concerning Glastonbury Abbey and of the Recent Excavations''. J. W. Arrowsmith Ltd.
''Bond's Reply''
April 1924
''Wilkins' Reply''
May 1924).


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bligh Bond, Frederick 1864 births 1945 deaths Old Catholic bishops English archaeologists Architects from Bristol English Old Catholics English illustrators English Theosophists Pseudoarchaeologists People educated at Marlborough College British parapsychologists Fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects People educated at Marlborough Royal Free Grammar School People from Marlborough, Wiltshire