Thomas Charles Lethbridge (23 March 1901 – 30 September 1971), better known as T. C. Lethbridge, was an English archaeologist, parapsychologist, and explorer. A specialist in Anglo-Saxon archaeology, he was honorary Keeper of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology from 1923 to 1957, and wrote twenty-four books on various subjects, becoming known for his advocacy of dowsing.
Born in Somerset to a wealthy family, Lethbridge was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, during the course of which he attended an expedition to Jan Mayen island, becoming part of the first group to successfully climb the Beerenberg. After a failed second expedition to the Arctic Circle, he became involved in archaeology. In his capacity as Keeper of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Lethbridge carried out excavations at sites around Britain. His claims regarding the existence of Iron Age hill figures on Wandlebury Hill in Cambridgeshire caused controversy within the archaeological community, with most archaeologists concluding that he had misidentified a natural feature. Lethbridge's methodology and theories were widely deemed unorthodox, and in turn he became increasingly critical of the archaeological profession.
After resigning from the museum in 1957, Lethbridge devoted himself to researching paranormal phenomena, publishing a string of books on the subject for a popular rather than academic audience. Several books involved his research into the use of pendulums for dowsing, although in other publications he championed the witch-cult hypothesis of Margaret Murray, articulated the Stone Tape theory as an explanation for ghost sightings, and argued that extraterrestrial species were involved in shaping human evolution; in this he came to embrace and perpetuate the esoteric ideas of the Earth mysteries movement. Although his work in parapsychology was derided and ignored as pseudo-scientific by the academic establishment, he attracted a cult following, and his work was posthumously championed by esotericists including Colin Wilson and Julian Cope. In 2011 he was the subject of a biography by Terry Welbourn.
Early life
Youth Thomas Charles Lethbridge was born on 23 March 1901. His parents, Violet Lethbridge (née Murdoch) and her husband Ambrose Lethbridge, were wealthy and lived at Knowle House in Timberscombe, Somerset in south-west England, where they employed seven servants. The family's fortune stemmed from Ambrose's father Charles Lethbridge, who had married the wealthy coal heiress Susan Anne Yarburgh. Neither Charles nor Ambrose had to earn a living, and as gentlemen of "independent means" spent their time engaged in rural hobbies. By 1907 the Lethbridge family had moved to Lewell Lodge, Dorchester in Dorset, where Violet gave birth to daughter Jacintha in June. They then moved to a house named Trevissome in Flushing, Cornwall, where a second son, Ambrose "Bill" William Speke Lethbridge, was born. Thomas' father Ambrose contracted tuberculosis at the end of the decade, resulting in the family moving into Charles' house in Heytesbury, Wiltshire, where Ambrose died in September 1909, aged 34.
Around this time, Thomas developed an interest in archaeology, entomology, and ornithology, as well as drawing. In 1913 his family made plans for him to join the Royal Navy, although he failed the entrance exam due to alleged poor eyesight. At the outbreak of the First World War, Lethbridge was sent to Wellington College in Berkshire, while his mother and siblings moved to Buckhurst in Wokingham, Berkshire. In February 1919 Violet and her children moved to Manor House in Finchampstead, where Jacintha and Bill became seriously ill as a result of a flu pandemic; the former survived but Bill died in March.
University and Jan Mayen: 1921–1923 In October 1921 Lethbridge enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge, intent on studying geology and geography. Finding geology to be "crushingly dull", he rarely attended lectures and took little interest in his studies, instead spending much of his time shooting, fishing, and sailing. He graduated with a third class BA in June 1923.
During his studies Lethbridge decided to join an expedition to visit Jan Mayen island in the Arctic Circle, alongside fellow Cambridge students James Chaworth-Musters and William Syer Bristowe and a don from St. John's College, Cambridge, the geologist James Wordie. Although initially planning to travel independently, they decided to join a Norwegian expedition led by Hagbord Ekerold and accompanied by Swiss mountaineer and glaciologist Paul Louis Mercanton. The expedition set sail from Bratvaag aboard two ships in August 1921, and upon arriving at Jan Mayen they became the first team to successfully climb the Beerenberg ('Bears Mountain'). During the expedition, Lethbridge was also able to explore his growing interest in archaeology by excavating at an abandoned Eskimo settlement. The Times recognised the expedition as the mountaineering event of the year.
At Cambridge, Lethbridge had entered into a romantic relationship with Sylvia Robertson, a clergyman's daughter, and they were engaged to be married in March 1922.
In mid-1922 he went on a sailing voyage around the Hebrides in Scotland with his fellow Trinity student Geoffrey Walford.
In summer 1923 Lethbridge was part of a second expedition led by Wordie, designed to explore the eastern coast of Greenland to conduct geological and archaeological investigations and repeat Edward Sabine's pendulum gravity experiments. Sailing from Newcastle, they stopped first at Bergen and then Jan Mayen before getting stuck in pack ice. With food reserves running low, the crew resorted to killing and eating grey seals and polar bears, before they eventually aborted the mission and returned home.
Archaeological career
Keeper of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities, and marriages: 1923–1947 During his student years, Lethbridge had frequented the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, where he had befriended its curator, Louis Clarke. Upon Lethbridge's graduation, Clarke offered him the honorary position of Keeper of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities at the museum. Lethbridge took up the voluntary and unpaid post, being able to subsist on his family's finances. There, Lethbridge befriended the archaeologist Cyril Fox, aiding in Fox's excavation of the Devil's Dyke in Cambridgeshire. Lethbridge's archaeological excavations were, however, deemed of poor quality by many of his peers. In turn, Lethbridge derided the archaeological establishment, being frustrated by how long it took them to accept what he deemed to be "facts", and trusting his instinct and common sense rather than the dogma of the profession. There were exceptions to his scorn; for instance, he developed a friendship with T. D. Kendrick, an Anglo-Saxon art historian who then worked as Keeper of the British Museum in London. Over the course of his career at the museum, Lethbridge produced 60 archaeological reports, written in an unusually informal manner that used humour and wit and included narrative descriptions of the excavation process.
In February 1924, Lethbridge married Sylvia Robertson in a ceremony held at Salisbury Cathedral. Together they moved into a house known as The Lodge in Waterbeach. There, their first two sons were born: Christopher John in March 1925 and Hugh Periam in July 1926. In 1927, they moved to Mount Blow, a house in Shelford designed by architect Edwin Lutyens. It was there that Sylvia gave birth to a daughter, Belinda Mary, in April 1930. Sylvia suffered from mental illness however, resulting in repeated hospitalisation. Lethbridge meanwhile devoted much of his time to yachting around the British Isles, sometimes taking family members with him. Over the course of the 1930s he self-published a series of books featuring his own sketches and engravings of maritime scenes. He also deepened his interest in the paranormal during this period, coming to believe that an acquaintance of his was a genuine psychic and observing an unidentified flying object in Bracknell.
In 1937, Wordie organised an expedition to North West Greenland to investigate cosmic radiation at high latitudes and great altitudes. He assembled a team of ten men, nine of whom were from Cambridge University, among them Lethbridge and two other archaeologists. Setting sail in June 1937, Lethbridge undertook excavations of Eskimo sites at Rhyder Island, Cary Island, North West Island, and Isbjörn Island. On returning home in October 1937, it was decided that various geographical features encountered would be named after team members, and thus two lakes on Baffin Island were named the Lethbridge Lakes. During the trip, Lethbridge became particularly interested in the design of Eskimo boats, resulting in the self-publication of his 11-page booklet, Umiak – the European Ancestry of the 'Women's Boat, in 1937. He followed this with a second book, The Fishermen of Durness (1938), in which he argued that a study of contemporary traditional fishing communities could inform archaeologists more about ancient boat-making and fishing.
As the Second World War loomed, the British Admiralty commissioned Lethbridge to undertake a reconnaissance mission to Iceland to analyse German naval activity around the country, which he carried out in summer 1939. Lethbridge however treated the mission with contempt, spending much of the time visiting sites that interested him, such as locations mentioned in the Icelandic Sagas. Back in Britain, he self-published a short volume discussing his Icelandic journey, News from Tili. As war broke out, Lethbridge organised the transfer of much of the museum's collections to Balsham Caves for safe keeping, while also becoming a warden of the Air Raid Precautions. He also led the rescue excavation of ten prehistoric tumuli that were being destroyed to enable the construction of RAF Snailwell for the Royal Air Force.
Meanwhile, Lethbridge's wife Sylvia had been having affairs with various men, and he himself had begun an affair with Sylvia's younger cousin Mina, who was a secretary at the museum. The couple divorced in June 1943, and in November Lethbridge sold Mount Blow to pay a settlement to Sylvia. He married Mina in July 1944 at Oban, and together they moved from Cambridge to a farm on the Scottish island of Kerrera, where Lethbridge excavated some local caves. But the couple found life on Kerrera too isolated and soon returned to Cambridge, despite Lethbridge's dislike of the place and most of the university staff whom he worked alongside. He nevertheless continued his archaeological investigations, excavating an Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Lackford on Cavenham Heath, and involving himself in the investigation of the newly unearthed Mildenhall Treasure, being the individual responsible for locating its probable discovery spot. He was among the first to take an interest in the cemeteries of the Mid Anglo-Saxon period, believing that the lack of 'pagan' objects such as weapons reflected the fact that those buried in two seventh-century cemeteries were among the earliest Anglo-Saxon Christians. In January 1948, Lethbridge received word that his son Hugh had died by suicide after suffering post-traumatic stress disorder during his time in the armed forces.
Major publications and Gogmagog: 1948–1957