Charles Drayton Thomas
British Methodist minister and spiritualist
Charles Drayton Thomas (1867 - 1953) also known as C. Drayton Thomas was a British Methodist minister and spiritualist.
Career
Thomas graduated from Richmond Theological College and was a minister at Wesleyan Methodist Church. He was a member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) and a convinced spiritualist.
His father John Wesley Thomas, also a minister had died in 1903. In 1917, he attended séances with the medium Gladys Osborne Leonard. He carried many experiments with the medium and became convinced she had communicated with the spirit of his father. Thomas became known for his involvement in the Bobby Newlove case, a famous proxy séance sitting with Leonard.
Thomas defended the direct-voice medium Leslie Flint, despite the fact that other members from the SPR suggested he was fraudulent. He also defended the fraudulent spirit photographer William Hope from charges of fraud from Harry Price. Thomas received criticism from psychical researchers for this and his statements about the Hope-Price case were rebutted by the SPR in 1924.
“Charles Drayton Thomas” enters the record as british Methodist minister and spiritualist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Charles, Drayton and Thomas can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 19, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q27966377. VIAF identifies the subject as 14238885. The Library of Congress control number is n2008024319. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1867, 1953, 1903 and 1917.
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This entry incorporates text from “Charles Drayton Thomas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.