Arthur Findlay MBE JP (May 16, 1883 – July 24, 1964) was a writer, accountant, stockbroker and Essex magistrate, as well as a significant figure in the history of the religion of Spiritualism, being a partial founder of the newspaper Psychic News and also a founder of the International Institute for Psychical Research. In his will he left his home, Stansted Hall, to the Spiritualists’ National Union.
Aged 17, James Arthur Findlay had become interested in the field of comparative religion, something of which his staunchly Christian parents disapproved of – they even burned many of his books on the subject.
In 1913 he was awarded the title of Member of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his organization work for the Red Cross.
Findlay in 1920 founded the Glasgow Society for Psychical Research. In 1923 he took part in the Church of Scotland’s enquiry into psychic phenomena. In the same year, he retired from his profession and purchased Stansted Hall in Stansted, England, a manor house built in 1871.
In 1932, he became a founding member of Psychic News, a Spiritualist newspaper, along with Hannen Swaffer and Maurice Barbanell. He helped to found the International Institute for Psychical Research, of which he became the chairman. He also became an honorary member of both the American Foundation for Psychical Research, Edinburgh Psychic College and the honorary president of both the Institute of Psychic Writers and Artists and the Spiritualists’ National Union.
In his will, he left Stansted Hall to the Spiritualists’ National Union as a college for the advancement of Psychic Science, which was named the Arthur Findlay College of Psychic Science after him.
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