William S. Marriott also known as Dr. Wilmar was a British magician who became well known for exposing fraudulent spiritualist mediums.
Career
Marriott who observed spiritualist mediums at séances detected many of them in fraud. He stated that he could produce by natural means all the effects produced by spiritualists. Marriott had published four articles for Pearson's Magazine in 1910 exposing mediumship trickery. In these featured a number of fake spirit photographs, to reveal to the public how they could be made. He duplicated the phenomena of the Bangs Sisters. In 1910, Marriott with the psychical researcherEverard Feilding investigated the Italian medium Eusapia Palladino in Naples. Unlike the 1908 sittings which had baffled the investigators, this time Feilding and Marriott detected her cheating, just as she had done in the USA. Her deceptions were obvious. Palladino evaded control and was caught moving objects with her foot, shaking the curtain with her hands, moving the cabinet table with her elbow and touching the séance sitters. In 1921, Marriott had produced 'spirit' photographs whilst the journalist James Douglas and spiritualist Arthur Conan Doyle were present. He explained how he had manipulated the photographs. Doyle admitted in a public statement that "Mr. Marriott has clearly proved one point, which is that a trained conjurer can, under the close inspection of three pairs of critical eyes, put a false image upon a plate. We must unreservedly admit it." British rationalist author Edward Clodd suggested that Marriott was "the most experienced exposer of mediums in this country." Marriott was friends with the psychical researchersHarry Price and Everard Feilding. In February 1922, Marriott with Price, James Seymour and Eric Dingwall demonstrated that the spirit photographer William Hope was fraudulent.
Marriott became known for publicising a rare private catalogue of fake spiritualist medium equipment titled Gambols with the Ghosts: Mind Reading, Spiritualistic Effects, Mental and Psychical Phenomena and Horoscopy, issued by Ralph E. Sylvestre in 1901. It was designed for private circulation amongst fraudulent mediums. Sylvestre stated in the catalogue that "our effects are being used by nearly all prominent mediums." It contained equipment to produce fraudulent materialisations, slate-writing, table-turning, and a "complete spiritualistic séance." A copy is preserved in the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature at the University of London.
