Thomas Charles Lethbridge
| Thomas Charles Lethbridge MA | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||
| Born | 1901 | ||||
| Died | 1971 | ||||
| Residence |
The Lodge, Waterbeach, Cambs. Mount Blow, Shelford, Cambridge [1929] University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge [1949] | ||||
| Occupation |
archaeologist explorer museum work | ||||
| |||||
Contents
Notes
Office Notes
RAI Council 1935-36 Member
House Notes
1926.06.22 proposed by L.C.G. Clarke, seconded by H.J.E. Peake
Notes From Elsewhere
Thomas Charles Lethbridge (23 March 1901 – 30 September 1971), better known as T.C. Lethbridge, was an English archaeologist, parapsychologist, and explorer. A specialist in Anglo-Saxon archaeology, he served as honorary Keeper of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology from 1923 to 1957, and over the course of his lifetime wrote twenty-four books on various subjects, becoming particularly well known for his advocacy of dowsing.
Born in Somerset to a wealthy family, Lethbridge was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, during the course of which he attended an expedition to Jan Mayen island, becoming part of the first group to successfully climb the Beerenberg. After a failed second expedition to the Arctic Circle, he became involved in archaeology. In his capacity as Keeper of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Lethbridge carried out excavations at various sites around Britain. His claims regarding the existence of Iron Age hill figures on Wandlebury Hill in Cambridgeshire caused significant controversy within the archaeological community, with most archaeologists believing that Lethbridge had erroneously misidentified a natural feature. Lethbridge's methodology and theories were widely deemed unorthodox, and in turn he became increasingly critical of the archaeological profession.
After resigning from the university museum in 1957, Lethbridge moved with his wife to Branscombe, Devon. There he devoted himself to researching paranormal phenomena, publishing a string of books on the subject aimed at a popular rather than academic audience. Most of this involved his research into the use of pendulums for dowsing, although in other publications he championed the witch-cult hypothesis of Margaret Murray, articulated the Stone Tape theory as an explanation for ghost sightings, and argued that extraterrestrial species were involved in shaping human evolution; in this he came to embrace and perpetuate the esoteric ideas of the Earth mysteries movement. Although his work in parapsychology was derided and ignored as pseudo-scientific by the academic establishment, he attracted a cult following, and his work was posthumously championed by esotericists like Colin Wilson and Julian Cope. In 2011 he was made the subject of a biography by Terry Welbourn.
Publications
External Publications
Recent Excavations in Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk: A Report. 1931
Shanty. 1932
Some West Country Coasters. 1933
From Dublin to Elsinore in a Sailing Ship. 1934
North About: Notes on a Passage from the Clyde to the Åland Islands. 1935
Short Splices – Some Notes on Ships and Boats. 1936
Umiak: The European Ancestry of the 'Women's Boat'. 1937
Fishermen of Durness. 1938
Notes from Tili. 1939
Merlin's Island: Essays on Britain in the Dark Ages. 1948
Herdsmen and Hermits: Celtic Seafarers in the Northern Sea. 1950
Coastwise Craft. 1952
Boats and Boatmen. 1952
The Painted Men: A History of the Picts. 1954
Gogmagog: The Buried Gods. 1957
Ghost and Ghoul. 1961
Witches: Investigating an Ancient Religion. 1962
Ghost and Divining Rod. 1963
ESP: Beyond Time and Distance. 1965
A Step in the Dark. 1967
The Monkey's Tail: A Study in Evolution and Parapsychology. 1969
The Legend of the Sons of God: A Fantasy? 1972
The Power of the Pendulum. 1976
The Essential T.C. Lethbridge. 1980
