Oliver
Lodge 1851-1940
STUDIED AT the Royal College of Science and at University College. Achieved his DS.c in 1877 and by 1881 he was Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Liverpool.
In 1884 he joined the SPR, not because he liked the subject of psychical research but - as he notes in his autobiography - because he had 'found a series of facts that were unpalatable and mainly neglected by scientific men, and felt them worthy of attention'. Also contributed to the popular scientific magazine
Nature.
He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1887. In 1900 he accepted an offer to become first Principal of Birmingham University, and shaped its course until he retired in 1919. He had stipulated that he must be allowed to continue his work in psychical research.
He was later knighted in 1902, when he had already served for a year as President of the SPR. Became President of the British Association in 1913.
He first became convinced of survival after extensive examination of Leonora
Piper's remarkable phenomena in 1889.
Professor of Physics, University College, Liverpool which was subsequently named after him. Honorable member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers. Lodge was a pioneer in wireless telegraphy and actually sent a radio message one year before
Marconi.
President of the Physical Society, the British Association, the Rontgen Society, and SPR (from 1901 to 1903) and then again with
Mrs. Eleanor Sidgwick in 1932 as Joint Presidents of
Honour.
Source (with minor modifications):
An Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science by Nandor Fodor (1934).
Articles by Oliver Lodge on this website:
In Memory of Prof. Frederic W. H. Myers
On the Subliminal Self and on the Book Human Personality
Psychic Science
The Mode of Future Existence
What Science Means For Man
The Possibility of Survival from a Scientific Point of View
The Mechanism of Survival
Problems Raised by the Idea of Survival
On the Asserted Difficulty of the Spiritualistic Hypothesis from a Scientific Point of View
Books by Oliver Lodge on this website:
Survival of Man
Raymond or Life and Death
Why I Believe in Personal Immortality
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