William Jackson Crawford was a paranormal investigator who the author A. J. West has given the name of The Spirit Engineer; a name that also happens to be the title for West's novel.
In many ways William's life is a mystery, his story all but forgotten by even the most devoted of scholars into the world of spiritualist study. However, A J West discovered that William, who was born in New Zealand, travelled to Glasgow as a young adult where he first became a teacher, before moving on the Belfast and coming to the attention of the great magician Houdini, and also Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - both men being famed as scientific psychical investigators. However, by the end of his life, William had been discredited and ridiculed as a fraud regarding his efforts to prove the truth of what might lie beyond the grave.
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| William Jackson Crawford 1880-1920 |
Having married Elizabeth Bullock Jolly, William went on to find employment with the Belfast Municipal Technical Institute. The family would have been comfortably off ~ certainly of considerable means when compared to Kathleen Goligher, a young woman from a poor working class background who was also involved as a medium in spiritualist seances.
How William met the sixteen year old Kathleen is not known, but he became deeply involved with the Goligher family circle; perhaps due to his wife's own interest in the world of the after life. William was very soon convinced in the truth of Kathleen's work, so much so that he did his utmost to prove her integrity to the masses, being adamant that the grave was not the end but the start of life. Between 1914 and 1920 his scientific investigations offered the 'proof' of Kathleen's claims.
Sadly, William's earthly existence and involvement with the Golighers was not to end in happiness. There are rumours of a mental breakdown combined with physical ailments, all of which eventually resulted in his suicide by drowning. Or so the story goes. In fact, William's body was found by the sea in the exact position where he had settled on some rocks, and he was foaming at the mouth, which indicates it is more likely that he had ingested poison. (Working at the Technical Institute he would have had easy access to potassium cyanide powder used for developing early photographic plates.)
William was also said to have been found with a parcel and letter addressed to his wife, which was disposed of by the policeman who came upon the body. It is strongly assumed that it alluded to the fact that Kathleen Goligher had been nothing but a fraud.
Whatever the truth of the matter, and what William did or did not discover about the Goligher's psychic circle, The Spirit Engineer offers a fascinating fictional account into the world of the supernatural, which was fervently believed in by so many at the time.
It is this faith that A J West has so vividly researched and then depicted in his hugely anticipated debut, The Spirit Engineer.
The novel will be published in October 2021, but for more immediate background information do visit A. J. West's author website, with details of his research into this fascinating story.
