Harold Dearden

Harold Dearden (13 December 1882 – 6 July 1962) was a British psychiatrist and screenwriter.

Harold Dearden
Born(1882-12-13)13 December 1882
Bolton
Died6 July 1962(1962-07-06) (aged 79)
Hay-on-Wye
OccupationPsychiatrist, screenwriter

Biography

Dearden was born in Bolton, Lancashire. He was educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and London Hospital. He qualified as a physician in 1911.[1]

During World War I, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was a medical officer for the 3rd Battalion of the Grenadier Guards. In 1916, he became honorary Captain. At the Battle of the Somme he was wounded, suffering from a lost eye and shell shock. He was later invalided out of the war.[1][2][3]

During World War II, Dearden worked as a psychiatrist and was principal interrogator at Camp 020.[3]

He wrote the play Interference (with Roland Pertwee). He also wrote the Two White Arms which became a successful film.[1] In 1943, he married Ann Verity Gibson Watt, they had four children.[2]

He died at his home in Hay-on-Wye from cerebral thrombosis.[1]

Spiritualism

Dearden was skeptical of claims of psychical phenomena and spiritualism. In his book Devilish But True: The Doctor Looks at Spiritualism (1936), he compared cases of witchcraft to spiritualist mediums. He noted the similarity of hysterical behaviour and hallucinations.[4]

In 1927, he wrote an article How Spiritualists are Deluded.[5] Dearden attended séances and was a judge for a group formed by the Sunday Chronicle to investigate the materialization medium Harold Evans. During a séance Evans was exposed as a fraud. He was caught masquerading as a spirit, in a white nightshirt.[6]

Publications
  • Insanity: Prevention or Cure? (1922)
  • The Moral Imbecile (1922)
  • The Technique of Living (1924)
  • The Doctor Looks at Life (1924)
  • The Science of Happiness (1925)
  • Exercise and the Will: With a Chapter on Obesity (1927)
  • How Spiritualists are Deluded (1927)
  • Medicine and Duty: The First World War Diary of Dr Harold Dearden (1928, 2014)
  • Two White Arms: A Comedy-Farce in Three Acts (1928)
  • The Mind of the Murderer (1930)
  • Such Women are Dangerous (1933)
  • The Fire Raisers: The Story of Leopold Harris and His Gang (1934)
  • A Confessor of Women (1934)
  • Queer People (1935)
  • Devilish But True: The Doctor Looks at Spiritualism (1936)
  • The Wind of Circumstance (1938)[7]
  • Time and Chance (1940)[8]
  • Creation's Heir (1947)
  • Some Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury and Others: Death Under the Microscope (1948)

References
  1. Anonymous. (1962). Harold Dearden, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. The British Medical Journal 2 (5298): 197–198.
  2. "Dr. Harold Dearden - Psychiatrist at Camp 020". Giselle K. Jakobs, 2014.
  3. West, Nigel. (2009). The A to Z of British Intelligence. The Scarecrow Press. p. 139. ISBN 978-0-8108-6865-6
  4. Anonymous. (1936). Notes on Books. The British Medical Journal 1 (3938): 1303.
  5. Dearden, Harold. (April 9, 1927). How Spiritualists are Deluded. The Graphic. pp. 50–51.
  6. Price, Harry. (1939). Fifty Years of Psychical Research: A Critical Survey. Longmans, Green and Co. p. 202
  7. "The Wind of Circumstance". Kirkus Reviews.
  8. "Time and Chance". The Spectator.
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