author

Thomas Olman Todd

Best known for writing about the origins of modern Spiritualism, this Sunderland-based author brought a dramatic chapter of occult history to a wider public. His surviving books also show a strong interest in local institutions and fraternal life.

1 Audiobook

Hydesville The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism

Hydesville The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism

by Thomas Olman Todd

About the author

Thomas Olman Todd was a British writer and publisher associated with Sunderland, England. Surviving records connect him with Spiritualist publishing and with local civic or fraternal history, suggesting a career shaped by organized movements as much as by books.

He is best known today for Hydesville (1905), an account of the Rochester knockings and the rise of modern Spiritualism. In the book's preface, he explains that he prepared it after being urged by Emma Hardinge Britten to preserve the early history of the movement in an affordable, accessible form.

Other surviving works include History of the Phoenix Lodge, No. 94, Sunderland (1906), and reference pages describe him as connected with Phoenix Lodge in Sunderland. A few genealogical records identify a Thomas Olman Todd born in 1893 and dying in 1969, but because those details were not confirmed by stronger biographical sources here, they are best treated cautiously.