Frank Podmore

Frank Podmore (5 February 1856 - 14 August 1910) was an English author, founding member of the Fabian Society, and writer on psychic matters.

Born at Elstree, Hertfordshire, Podmore was the son of Thompson Podmore, headmaster of Eastbourne College. He was educated at Haileybury and Pembroke College, Oxford (where he first became interested in spiritualism and joined the Society for Psychical Research - this interest remained with him throughout his life).

In October 1883 Podmore and Edward R. Pease joined a socialist debating group established by Edith Nesbit and Hubert Bland. Podmore suggested that the group should be named after the Roman General, Quintus Fabius Maximus, who advocated the weakening the opposition by harassing operations rather than becoming involved in pitched battles. In January 1884 the group became known as the Fabian Society and Podmore's home at 14 Dean's Yard, Westminster became the organisation's first official headquarters.

In 1886 Podmore and Sidney Webb conducted a study into unemployment, eventually published as a Fabian Society pamphlet The Government Organisation of Unemployed Labour. However, Podmore's major work was a detailed study of the life and ideas of Robert Owen (1906).

Podmore resigned from a senior post in the Post Office in 1907, possibly after he became involved in a homosexual scandal. He died by drowning at Malvern in August 1910 - possibly suicide.

Works

Podmore's books and pamphlets include:

• Phantasms of the Living (1886, written with Frederick Myers and Edmund Gurney)
• The Government Organisation of Unemployed Labour (1886)
• Apparitions and Thought-Transference (1892)
• Studies in Psychical Research (1897)
• Modern Spiritualism (1902)
• Biography of Robert Owen (1906)
• Mesmerism and Christian Science (1909)
• The Newer Spiritualism (1910)

External Links

• The History of the Fabian Society by Edward R. Pease