London, England
Incident period: London séance on 7 October 1930; Price’s case record published in July 1931
At three o’clock on an October afternoon, a London séance arranged in the hope of contacting Arthur Conan Doyle took an unexpected direction. Eileen Garrett began delivering statements attributed to the captain of the airship R101, lost in France two days earlier. The original published record preserves the sequence, the words, questions from the room and an anonymous technical reader’s later comments. It is a much more complicated document than the familiar claim that a medium revealed the cause of an air disaster.
A sitting arranged before the disaster
Harry Price’s 1931 report states that journalist Ian D. Coster visited the National Laboratory of Psychical Research on Thursday 2 October 1930. Price telephoned Garrett in his presence and arranged a sitting for the following Tuesday at 3pm. The appointment therefore preceded the crash. According to Price, Garrett was told that a friend wanted a sitting, without being told Coster’s magazine connection or their hope of hearing from Doyle.
On 7 October, the people present were Price, Coster and the laboratory secretary, Ethel Beenham. Beenham took shorthand notes. Price says Garrett had not previously sat at the laboratory and that the participants had no personal experience of her mediumship. These are the investigator’s stated arrangements; the published paper is his edited presentation of the resulting record.
The loss of R101
R101 had left Cardington on 4 October for a journey towards India. Parliament’s historical account records that the airship had undergone alterations intended to improve its inadequate lift, including an additional bay. It carried 48 crew and six passengers. In the early hours of 5 October it crashed near Allonne, France; 48 people died and six survived.
The London sitting belongs in this UK collection because it took place in Britain. The crash site is overseas and is not the position marked on the UK map. By the time Garrett sat on Tuesday afternoon, the disaster was public news. Price acknowledges special Sunday newspaper editions and fuller reports on Monday 6 October. The claim was therefore not that she announced an unknown loss before the newspapers.
From Uvani to an urgent new voice
Price describes Garrett sitting in an armchair in daylight, becoming entranced after several minutes. Her usual control personality, Uvani, greeted the room. A communication attributed to the deceased psychical researcher Albert von Schrenck-Notzing followed, but Price says it supplied nothing verifiable.
The record then introduces a name spelt uncertainly as Irving or Irwin. A voice apologised for interrupting and pressed the listeners to pass on information. Garrett’s voice changed again, and the communicator identified himself as Flight-Lieutenant H. Carmichael Irwin, the airship’s captain. Price described an agitated sequence of short statements rather than a calm, organised engineering lecture.
The names Dora, Dorothy and Gladys appear near the beginning. Technical assertions follow rapidly. Beenham reportedly had difficulty keeping up with the speed, although Price believed that little had been lost. After this episode, a Doyle personality appeared and Garrett eventually returned to ordinary consciousness.
What the communication contained
The printed transcript repeatedly returns to weight, lift, engines and an inability to rise. It refers to inadequate trials, changes to the ship’s structure, weather, wet fabric and difficulty trimming the airship. Other remarks concern fuel feed, cooling, propellers and an elevator said to have jammed.
The passage is not a single, consistent explanation. It moves between the final flight, earlier difficulties and possible engineering changes. There are obscure expressions and an engine-capacity figure whose unit later required reinterpretation. Price’s own question about the inflammability of crude oil is printed in the middle of the exchange, followed by a reply contradicting him.
The transcript’s value lies partly in this unevenness. Keeping the awkward phrases beside the apparently apt ones allows readers to see what was actually recorded. A polished retrospective summary can make the communication sound more coherent and specific than the original sequence.
Copies, publicity and an anonymous officer
Price says the shorthand notes were transcribed immediately and copies circulated on request. The Air Ministry received a copy, and the existence of the record was brought to the attention of Sir John Simon, who conducted the public inquiry. Crucially, the report says the laboratory did not know what use official bodies made of it. Receipt of a document is not the same as official endorsement.
The existence of the Irwin material was mentioned in a magazine article published in December 1930. An officer identified only as Mr X then requested the record. He was said to have had considerable contact with the airship’s officers and crew. Mrs A. Peel Goldney recorded his comments for the laboratory.
The paper explicitly states that Mr X spoke privately, rather than as a representative of his department. Its parallel columns consequently contain the séance statements and a later reader’s assessments, not the findings of the airship inquiry reproduced as a verdict on mediumship.
The annotations contain more than agreement
Mr X regarded a number of phrases as technically relevant. He connected the references to weight and lift with known concerns about the ship. He also discussed proposed experiments involving hydrogen and oil fuel, which the authors considered particularly striking.
Elsewhere the annotations are tentative. Some statements are called obscure; others are described as probable, possible or in agreement with popular opinion. The figure printed in cubic centimetres is made intelligible by proposing cubic inches instead. One remark about structural changes is said not to withstand close criticism.
The reference to Achy attracted special attention because the compilers found the small French place difficult to locate on their maps. A German airship designation was also traced after checking records. Those episodes helped shape Price’s positive conclusion, but the paper preserves the intervening interpretation and searching as well as the claimed correspondences.
The Jarman papers and the later archive trail
The case continued beyond Price’s article. University of London archivists describe research by Major Oliver Villiers and an unpublished report by W. H. Jarman among the Eric Dingwall papers. Their catalogue also identifies comments and correspondence associated with the airship communications.
This case file has consulted the published 1931 record and the archive descriptions, not the unpublished Jarman report itself. A 2013 library notice already discussed that report’s availability, whereas a separate body of Dingwall correspondence was opened after its closure period ended in 2025. Those are different archival developments.
The surviving trail gives future readers a clear route: begin with the sitting and its annotations, then consult the later reports in their own context. The London episode remains an unusual meeting point between the history of mediumship, the reporting of a national disaster and the interpretation of technical language.
Timeline
2 October 1930: Coster and Price arrange Garrett’s London sitting.
4 October: R101 leaves Cardington.
5 October: the airship is lost in France.
7 October, 3pm: the London séance takes place.
December 1930: the existence of the Irwin record is mentioned in magazine coverage.
July 1931: Price’s case record appears in Psychic Research, pages 268–279.
2013 and 2025: separate library notices concern different parts of the later archival trail.
Sources & further reading
Harry Price: The R-101 Disaster (Case Record) — Psychic Research, volume 25, July 1931, pages 268–279; full original report and annotations read.
UK Parliament: R101’s final journey — Airship background, departure and casualties.
Senate House Library: the Dingwall correspondence — Archival context and the distinction between previously accessible reports and later-opened correspondence.
Eric Dingwall papers: collection catalogue — Descriptions of the Jarman and related material; not a substitute for reading the unpublished documents.
London geographical reference — Verified broad city coordinate.
Related case files
Gladys Leonard’s book tests: the nineteenth volume, the missing spaces and Sidgwick’s 1921 report
D. D. Home at Ashley Place: the reported London levitation of 1868
Location note: Broad London reference for the British séance, not the French crash site or an asserted precise laboratory doorway.
UKPX historical case file. Researched and checked 4 November 2026. Explore the UK case map · Links & Sources.