History
Before 1918
In the early 1930's there was one man who was the
acknowledged leader among psychic researchers.
He had been dragooned into the
psychic work, and had done his best to resist the summons. His name was Thomas Glendinning Hamilton.
Before we go into the details of Dr. Hamilton's work
in the psychic field we need to spend a few minutes to answer the question:
'What kind of a man was Dr. Hamilton?'
And before we begin to answer that question there is
another fact that should be mentioned right at the outset.
Dr. Hamilton and his family were going into a brand
new field of study, and they had no idea
how their lives would be given to this work and how much they would end
up doing in this field. The beginnings
of the work were very tentative and there was clearly no day by day record
keeping.
For this reason there are events at the beginning of
the work that have been given dates of
occurrence that may differ by as much as two years.
Clearly, the events of the very early experiments were
reconstructed from memory years later without the benefit of written notes, and
by different observers; and there is no way at present of deciding between the
dates since the participants in the events have all long since died.
That the events happened at least very nearly as
described is not in question - it is the precise dating of these events that is
not clear.
When it became evident that the work was going to be
of some importance, the dating also became more accurate and many notes were
taken verbatim.
There is an anomaly in the dating of the year that Dr.
Hamilton spent at Harvard. One reference
gives the year as 1917, another as 1919.
This is the sort of thing that can be easily ascertained by
correspondence with the University. The
reason for this ambiguity is not known.
Having said that, we may move on to the events.
Thomas Glendinning Hamilton was born on November 27,
1873 in Agincourt, Ontario. He was the
fourth son of James Archibald Hamilton and Isabella Glendinning Hamilton. Four years later a fifth son, William Oliver
Hamilton, was added to the family.
His father moved the family from Agincourt to the
Saskatoon area of Saskatchewan when there were only a few sod huts between
Indian Reservations, as they were then
known. Thomas, along with his brothers,
helped his father; and they did their best to eke out a living in farming.
After his father died in 1885, his mother decided to
move the family to Winnipeg to improve the opportunities for the education of
her sons. The sons had tried to continue
farming but crops were poor and drought compelled them to sell and leave.
The rest of the family went ahead to Winnipeg; and it
was a long move by horse and cart for Thomas and his brother, who came after
the rest of the family arrived in Winnipeg by train.
T. G. H. , as Thomas Hamilton was invariably called by
family and friends, had attended to matters of closing the deal for the farm in
Saskatchewan, and had traveled with brother James Archibald, by buckboard and
pony, almost 800 miles to Winnipeg.
At the outskirts of the city, the boys had sold the
outfit to a farmer whose promissory note proved worthless. They walked the last 18 miles, finally
reaching the small but welcoming home the mother had prepared.
In his later years, T. G. H. always laughed when he
described the sorry picture he and his brother must have made - two tired,
dirty, unkempt youths - when they finally arrived.
[ Photo of Dr.
Hamilton as teen - undated ]
T. G. H. attended Manitoba College - a liberal arts
school - then taught school for two years in the area just north of Winnipeg to
get the needed money before entering Medical College.
In May of 1903 he graduated from the Manitoba Medical
College and became house surgeon at the Winnipeg General Hospital, now known as
the Health Sciences Center. He was 29
years old.
[ Photo of Dr.
Hamilton as graduate - circa 1903 ]
His brothers also attained professional status; Robert
became an electrical inspector for the Manitoba government; John Stobo,
T. G. H. and James Archibald became medical doctors, and William Oliver
became a lawyer.
[ Photo of Hamilton boys - Dr. Hamilton's brothers -
undated ]
In June of 1904, T. G. H. established his medical
practice in Louise Bridge which later became the Winnipeg suburb of Elmwood, a
rapidly growing area of the city across the river.
When T. G. H.
hung up his shingle in 1904, as the first doctor, he lived in a small
rented house near Louise Bridge. The
area was then like a park, with few houses, one school, and one link to the
city of Winnipeg - Louise Bridge.
For a few short years he was the only doctor, which
meant he had to be proficient in many skills - patching up minor cuts and
bruises, taking out tonsils, setting broken arms and legs, pulling teeth, and
delivering babies.
He built his impeccable medical reputation through
work in internal medicine, obstetrics and, in particular, surgery. He became a fine and respected surgeon who
was considered ahead of his time in plastic surgery.
He also thought it essential to perspire to be
healthy, and as an idiosyncratic touch he wore long underwear all year long -
the old-fashioned, heavy wool, one-piece kind.
Two sets in the winter reduced to one in the summer! The ability to survive this idiosyncracy
through some of the very hot days in a
Manitoba July or August alone marked him as a man of powerful determination and
stamina.
In 1905 he was elected an Elder in the King Memorial
Church in Elmwood, an office that he faithfully and continually held to the end
of his life.
During his time as an Elder he was also the building
chairman and he oversaw the building of the new Church which is still taking in
worshippers on Cobourg Avenue, just a bit north-west of the Hamilton home.
In May of 1906 he was elected to the Winnipeg Public
School Board as one of two representatives from Elmwood; and he served in this
capacity for nine years, until 1915.
That same year, 1906,
he married Lillian Forrester, one of the graduates in nursing of the
Winnipeg General Hospital School of Nursing.
Lillian Mae Forrester was from Emerson, Manitoba.
They went on a honeymoon trip. It is amusing to note that on this trip Dr.
Hamilton typically 'killed two birds with one stone' in that the trip to
Minneapolis, Chicago, Toronto and Montreal included looking in on the hospitals
in all those cities to view their procedures at first hand. He was never one to let an opportunity for
improvement of his medical skills slip by.
There is no record that Lillian ever complained at this dedication. In all that he did he was ever assured of her support.
On February 23, 1909, a daughter, Margaret, was born
and in that year one of the Lord Selkirk Schools was built.
By 1910 he was busily building the family home on
MacIntosh Avenue, near the intersection of what was then Kelvin Street and
Redwood Avenue, and which is now the intersection of Henderson Highway and
Hespeler. He built a suite of offices on
the main floor - and a 'Surgery' in the basement, with its own door and steps
down, off the side street.
[ Photo of Hamilton House at 185 Kelvin Street -
undated ]
[ Photo of
Hamilton House on Henderson
Highway - 2009 ]
He and his family resided there until his own death,
with a Hamilton continuing in residence until the early 1980's. Today, in March of 2009, the house is still
there.
On August 16, 1911, Glen Jr. was born.
Dr. Hamilton spent one year as President of the
Winnipeg School Board, during 1911 and 1912.
He persuaded the School Board to acquire the properties on which the two
Selkirk Schools were built. The second
Lord Selkirk School was built at this time.
He also oversaw the building of the original Kelvin
High School and St. John's High School.
He was involved
in getting the Playgrounds Act passed and free medical inspections for
students, as well as fire drills in the schools.
He served on medical committees, looking into the
incidence of goitre among the children in Manitoba; and he was concerned with
the living conditions of Native Americans. He spent much time working to
upgrade medical standards and hospital procedures while serving on the School
Board.
His mother, for whom he had built a suite upstairs in
the new home, died in 1912.
He resigned from the Winnipeg School Board around 1915
when he decided to run for a seat in the Manitoba Legislature. He won that election and served on Broadway
until 1920. The area of his
responsibility as MLA reaching all the way to the Main Street of Kenora in what
is now the Province of Ontario.
On September 27, 1915, twins, James and Arthur, were
born.
Daughter Margaret, in the mid 1980's, had this to say of her childhood:
"In 1915 Mother had twin sons - James Drummond
and Arthur Lamont. She nearly died in
giving birth, for she suffered a prolonged haemmorhage, and my uncle Jim
Hamilton, Dad's brother and medical partner, stayed with her all night until
she was out of danger. I was only six
and a half when they were born on September 27.
I remember coming home from school, and being told by the nurse that
there was something nice upstairs for me.
When I rushed up to see - two red-faced little things, each lying on a
big pillow - I was so disappointed. I wanted puppies or kittens! How could I play with two such tiny babies?
"I recall happy hours spent in the fenced-in big
back yard, playing in our sand-box, climbing the small elm tree, trying to
catch butterflies, and enjoying the first shoots of the early spring rhubarb,
which were a real treat, dipped in sugar.
And to watch over us, Emily, our housekeeper, and Mrs. Poole, a local midwife,
who was later to become an important link in my father's investigations.
"We saw Dad rarely - he was a slave to his public
commitments - first as a member of the School Board from 1906 - 1915; then as a
devoted doctor, who made house calls (almost unheard of to-day)! Indeed, when the opportunity arose, we'd all
get into his automobile - an open touring car - and go with him, should it be a
call to someone out in the country. Then
we had fun, and made it the excuse for a picnic. He was Public Health Officer for a large area
east and north of our corner in Elmwood.
"Sundays were the best, since they meant church
in the morning, dinner at noon, and high tea in front of the fire in the living
room grate. Then he would carve little
wooden houses, an entire toy village,
from scrap mill-ends, or help my brothers build meccano constructs.
"He was not a demonstrative man, but his
affections ran deep, and we felt them intuitively, as he took precious time to
play with us, only all too rarely."
Dr. Hamilton continued his medical practise while
serving in the Legislature; and found time to be instrumental in various
reforms, such as getting the vote for women - Manitoba being the first province
to do so, in 1916. He worked on the
Mothers' Allowances Act and the Workers' Compensation Act, and an Act making
the Manitoba Medical College a part of the University of Manitoba.
From 1912 to 1918 he taught Medical Jurisprudence to
Medical Students.
During the war years the Canadian Medical Association
was on the verge of collapse and Dr. Hamilton helped in its revival and later
served as President of the Association for a year.
The first World War ended in 1918. It was also the beginning of the great flu
epidemic that killed millions around the world.
In either 1917 or 1919 - the notes give both years as
already mentioned - he went to Harvard Medical School, taking
post-graduate studies in surgery. He was
already becoming known as one of the first plastic surgeons, both in Canada and
in the United States.
At Harvard he met Dr. L. R. Crandon who was making a
name for himself as a brilliant surgeon.
They would, within a few years, work together in the field of psychic
research. For now they shared a common
interest in reading about the new psychic work of Crawford in Belfast, of
Crookes and Lodge in England, and of Geley in France, of Osty and others.
[ Photo of Margery - became a famous medium soon after
1923 - undated photo ]
[ Photo of Margery - another view - undated ]
[ Photo of Margery - a third photo - undated ]
He was at the height of his medical career with a very
busy life, a member of the Manitoba Legislature, a doctor with a growing family
and an expanding medical practice. He
was very active in his church in several capacities.
Clearly Dr. Hamilton did not go into psychic studies
because he was bored and had nothing else to do. The picture is of a man devoted to his life's
calling and working in every way to improve the lives of those who knew him as
physician and friend. He was known by
his neighbours and colleagues as a man of compassion, perseverence, and
competence.
