Alaric Alfred Watts, c. 1890

Alaric Alfred Watts (18 February 1825 – 1901), best known as A. A. Watts, was a British government clerk, spiritualist and writer.

He was educated at University College School and worked as a clerk at the Inland Revenue Office.[1] He was the son of Alaric Alexander Watts. In 1859 he married Anna Mary Howitt.[2] Watts was a convinced spiritualist.[3] In 1882 with his friend William Stainton Moses, he formed The Ghost Club.[4][5] He was a member of the London Spiritualist Alliance.[6]

Watts was member of the Society for Psychical Research. He resigned after some of its members such as Eleanor Sidgwick dismissed the medium William Eglinton as fraudulent.[7]

Watts was also a poet, publishing, jointly with his wife, a volume entitled Aurora: a volume of verse.[8]

Publications

References

  1. ^ Boase, Frederic. (1921). Modern English Biography: (Supplement v.1-3). Netherton and Worth. p. 2273
  2. ^ "Alaric Alfred Watts". Dickens Journals Online.
  3. ^ Bevis, Matthew. (2013). The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Poetry. Oxford University Press. p. 432. ISBN 978-0198713715
  4. ^ Brock, William Hodson. (2008). William Crookes (1832-1919) and the Commercialization of Science. Science, Technology, and Culture, 1700-1945. Ashgate Publishing. p. 440. ISBN 0-7546-6322-1
  5. ^ Luckhurst, Roger. (2012). The Mummy's Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy. Oxford University Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-19-969871-4
  6. ^ Oppenheim, Janet. (1988). The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914. Cambridge University Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-0521347679
  7. ^ Oppenheim, Janet. (1988). The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914. Cambridge University Press. p. 140. ISBN 978-0521347679
  8. ^ Watts, Alaric Alfred; Howitt, Anna Mary (1875). Aurora; a volume of verse. London: King. Archived from the original on 30 November 2016.
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