Alfred Smedley

c. 1830–1905

John Alfred Smedley, known as Alfred Smedley, was a Belper iron founder whose religious questioning led from Wesleyan Methodism to Spiritualism. In Some Reminiscences he connected childhood fears of damnation, the consolations of family life and his experience of séances. He also helped sustain Spiritualist education, presenting an edition of the book to the British Spiritualists’ Lyceum Union.

Industry, reform and religious questioning

Smedley grew up in a Wesleyan family, the third of eight children. He recalled being troubled by teachings about eternal punishment, even while serving as a Sunday-school teacher and choir member. Apprenticed as an iron moulder at Alfreton, he later worked elsewhere before joining his brothers Frederick and James to establish the Eagle Iron Works at Belper in 1855. The firm made steam engines, boilers and construction ironwork. His public commitments included temperance, the Band of Hope and Liberal politics.

He married Sarah Annie Bingham and later joined the Methodist Free Church, where he became a Sunday-school superintendent. His memoir describes an increasingly independent search through reading and discussion, followed by an interest in séances. Family bereavement became central to his conviction that the dead remained accessible. Sarah Annie died in 1876; he later married Selina, previously Mrs Ford. His son Henry Urban also worked for the Spiritualist Lyceum movement. Smedley died on 24 January 1905.

Memoir and the evidence of the séance room

Some Reminiscences appeared in 1900 through the office of Light and the British Lyceum Union Depot. Smedley’s dedication records his gift of five thousand copies to the Union, made at Henry Urban’s suggestion. The volume combines his personal recollections with W. P. Adshead’s reports of Catherine Elizabeth Wood’s Derbyshire séances and an account by T. P. Barkas. Plans, portraits and illustrations of wax moulds were intended to strengthen the witnesses’ testimony.

Books and contributions

1 work in the current library

Some Reminiscences

Alfred Smedley

History, Travel & Cultures

Sources and further reading

The reports describe attempts to control Wood’s movements with a wire cage, fastenings and seals while apparent spirit forms emerged. Smedley regarded the results as persuasive evidence of survival, linking experimental precautions with consolation after loss. That judgement needs the wider record: in 1882 fellow Spiritualists Robert Catling and Thomas McKinney reported finding Wood herself beneath a supposed spirit’s muslin drapery at Peterborough. The book preserves the Belper supporters’ account; its confident conclusions do not settle the controversy over her mediumship.