Frederic W. H. Myers
Frederic W. H. Myers, born Frederick William Henry Myers on February 6, 1843, in Keswick, England, was a notable figure in the realms of literature, education, and the study of psychical research. He was educated at Cheltenham College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where his intellectual pursuits earned him recognition, though he was considered somewhat eccentric for his intense interest in Hellenism and philosophy. After a significant personal crisis involving the tragic death of a close friend, Myers shifted his focus from literature to journalism and, later, the investigation of spiritualism, driven by a desire to connect with the beyond.
In 1882, he co-founded the Society for Psychical Research, contributing to early studies on telepathy and the survival of consciousness after death. His key works include "Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death," published posthumously in 1903. Myers's theories and ideas were influential in introducing concepts from psychology and psychoanalysis, particularly in relation to the works of Sigmund Freud. He faced personal health challenges later in life, succumbing to pneumonia in Rome on January 17, 1901. Myers's legacy continues to resonate in discussions about the intersection of spirituality, psychology, and the literary arts.
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Subject Terms
Frederic W. H. Myers
Poet
- Born: February 6, 1843
- Birthplace: Keswick, Cumberland, England
- Died: January 17, 1901
- Place of death: Rome, Italy
Biography
Frederic W. H. Myers was born Frederick William Henry Myers on February 6, 1843, at St. John’s Parsonage in Keswick, England, where his father, Frederick Myers, was an Anglican clergyman. His grandfather was the mathematician Thomas Myres, and his younger brother was the poet Ernest James Myers. His father, the author of Catholic Thoughts on the Bible and three other books about religion, died in 1851.
After his father’s death, his mother, Susan Myers, took the family to Blackheath, England, and then to Cheltenham; there was money on both sides of the family and their circumstances remained comfortable. Myers attended Cheltenham College, winning various prizes, including one for his poem “The Death of Socrates,” before going to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1860. Myers’s career at Cambridge was brilliant, although he was regarded as an eccentric poseur because of his extravagant Hellenism. He memorized all of Virgil’s works, and experienced a philosophical conversion on reading Plato’s Phaedo. However, he was reconverted to Christianity by Josephine Butler, a feminist and Salvation Army philanthropist. Myers dedicated his most famous poem, “St Paul,” to Butler in 1867.
After graduating from Cambridge in 1864, he became a fellow of Trinity and a lecturer in classics, earning his M.A. in 1867. However, he resigned abruptly in 1869, when he had converted to agnosticism and became concerned with the cause of public education. In 1872, Myers obtained a post as an inspector of schools for the Department of Education and remained at this job until 1900.
In 1873, Myers developed a close friendship with Annie, the wife of his cousin Walter Marshall, whose mental state was causing concern. When Walter was committed to a mental institution, Annie drowned herself, causing Myers tremendous anguish. He wrote no worthwhile literary work thereafter but threw himself into journalism for such periodicals as the Fortnightly Review and The Nineteenth Century. At the same time, Myers and Henry Sidgwick began an intense investigation of the claims of spiritualism. Myers’s search for proof of Annie’s continued existence was eventually satisfied by two mediums, Leonora Piper and Rosina Thompson. On March 13, 1880, he married Eveleen Tennant and built Leckhampton House in 1881 to serve as a family home. He and his wife had three children, including the writer L. H. Myers, but Myers’s biographers assert that Eveleen always took second place to Annie.
In 1882, Myers and Sidgwick teamed up with the physicist Sir William Barrett and others to found the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), and Myers began collating testimony for his posthumously-issued study Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death (1903). The society’s first major report was Phantasms of the Living (1886), written by Myers and Edward Gurney. Myers’s younger brother Arthur, a physician, became an expert on hypnotism and Continental psychology, assisting Myers in developing an occult theory of the subliminal consciousness. The two brothers also introduced the ideas of Sigmund Freud to England in a paper entitled “Hysteria and Genius,” read to the SPR in 1897. In addition, Myers developed a theory of telepathy, a term he coined. Myers developed Bright’s disease in the 1890’s and went abroad for the sake of his health. He died of pneumonia in Rome on January 17, 1901.