HistoricaLeigh: Fairies at the bottom of the garden?

April 15, 2018 by Carole Mulroney

Maybe you remember one of the great hoaxes of the early 20^th Century – the so-called Cottingley Fairies?

Photographs supposed to be fairies and gnomes in woodland scenes were the creation of 2 schoolgirls who took pictures from books and set them in poses and then photographed them.

Word got out about these supposedly genuine photographs and, taken up by people who believed in such things, pictures appeared in the Strand Magazine. A lot of people were duped by the photographs including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who wrote supporting their veracity.

The hoax continued for many years until in 1982 when Geoffrey Crawley, born in Bow, but at an early age lived in Leigh decided to investigate further. A student at Westcliff High School for Boys and later editor of the British Journal of Photography, Crawley had all the tools he needed to look into it all. 

The following year he showed beyond doubt in a series of articles for his magazine that the photographs were fakes – and the now elderly, young girls owned up.

This article is by Carole Mulroney of Leigh Lives - www.leighlives.co.uk
To read all of Carole's previous article of the History of our little town, click here