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Colley, Thomas (d. 1912)

The archdeacon of Natal and rector of Stockton, a Church of England parish, and an ardent English psychical investigator. For a period of 40 years preceding his death in 1912, Colley had many extraordinary psychical experiences. Although he participated in the exposure of the fraudulent medium William Eglinton in 1876, he was the firmest believer in the similar phenomena of F. W. Monck. He issued a challenge to the stage magician J. Maskelyne to produce phenomena like Monck's. When the magician claimed to have won and sued for the amount of their wager, Archdeacon Colley was awarded £75 and costs in the verdict. He lectured on Monck's materializations before the church congress at Weymouth in October 1903 and gave memorable defenses of physical phenomena in the annals of Spiritualism.

Archdeacon Colley first brought the mediumship of William Hope, the spirit photographer, to public attention, and later founded the famous Crewe Circle.