Thomas Glendenning Hamilton (1873-1935) and Family

 

Photograph Courtesy of Ms. Janice Hamilton.

This photograph depicts Dr. T. Glen Hamilton, Mrs. Lillian Hamilton and family, at Winnipeg, in 1932. Included, clockwise from upper left, are: Glen Jr., Jim, Lillian, Glen Sr., and Margaret.

A medical doctor, politician and psychical researcher, Thomas Glendenning Hamilton was born in 1873 at Agincourt, Ontario, and died in 1935 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

T. Glen Hamilton and his wife Lillian, together with many prominent members of Winnipeg society (doctors, lawyers, clergymen, etc.), investigated psychic phenomena including table-tilting and ectoplasmic manifestations. Their careful, systematic approach gained them an international reputation.

T.G. Hamilton Lectures:  Whereas Margaret Hamilton Bach estimated that her father T.G. Hamilton had lectured publicly 86 times between 1926 and 1934, we now know that during those years he addressed audiences over 100 times, in Canada, the United States, and England. Audiences ranged from church groups and other small community organizations to the British Medical Association convention at Winnipeg’s Fort Garry Hotel and an American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR) meeting at New York’s Carnegie Hall. The broad interest in Dr. Hamilton’s psychical research experiments is demonstrated by the reported audience of 900 who attended his illustrated lecture “The Scientific Evidence for Survival after Death” at Winnipeg’s Westminster United Church on April 24, 1933. Historian Anton Wagner has compiled and kindly shared his revised list of T.G. Hamilton’s lectures.

The long-awaited Dictionary of Canadian Biography biographical sketch for Thomas Glendenning Hamilton was published 26 January 2022.  French translation here.

In 2012, Shaw TV in Winnipeg interviewed SRIC’s Walter Meyer zu Erpen on the subject and the records housed at the University of Manitoba:

See also:

The Quest for Immortality.

The Problem of Human Survival.

Following Dr. Hamilton’s death, his widow and children published three books about the family’s psychical research experiments.

Now, in collaboration with the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections and with the permission of the copyright holders, the Survival Research Institute of Canada has paid to digitize and create searchable PDF versions of the 1942 and 1969 editions of the Hamilton books.

In recognition of the costs incurred to make these digital books available, please consider making a charitable donation to the T.G. Hamilton Memorial Research Fund. After entering your contact information, click on the drop-down menu to select the T.G. Hamilton fund. Monies raised will be used to help preserve the Hamilton collection and to promote further research.

You can download a free copy of those out-of-print books from the university’s website:

T. Glen Hamilton (1942), edited by J.D. Hamilton. Intention and Survival: Psychical Research Studies and the Bearing of Intentional Actions by Trance Personalities on the Problem of Human Survival. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited, xviv, 292 pp.

Margaret Lillian Hamilton (1969). Is Survival A Fact?: Studies of Deep-Trance Automatic Scripts and the Bearing of Intentional Actions by the Trance Personalities on the Question of Human Survival. London: Psychic Press Ltd., 160 pp.

T. Glen Hamilton (1977), edited by Margaret Lillian Hamilton. Intention and Survival: Psychical Research Studies and the Bearing of Intentional Actions by Trance Personalities on the Problem of Human Survival. London: Regency Press Ltd., xxxix; 216 pp.