Frederick Merrifield

Frederick Merrifield (1831 – 28 May 1924, Brighton) was an English entomologist.

Merrifield was a London attorney. An expert on Lepidoptera, he was especially interested in the effect of temperature on the colour and patterning of butterflies, rearing larvae and pupae in controlled temperature incubators and recording the effect on the colouration of adults. Examples of his very many scientific papers on this subject are (1890). Systematic temperature experiments on some Lepidoptera in all their stages. Trans. Entomol. Soc. London, 131-59 and (1891). Conspicuous effects on the markings and colouring of Lepidoptera caused by exposure of the pupae to different temperature conditions. Trans. Entomol. Soc. London, 155-67.

He was President of the Royal Entomological Society (1905-1906).

Merrifield was a spiritualist, but lost respect for the medium Daniel Dunglas Home after claiming to have observed him cheat. At a séance in the house of the solicitor John Snaith Rymer in Ealing in July 1855, a sitter Merrifield observed that a "spirit-hand" was a false limb attached on the end of Home's arm. Merrifield also claimed to have observed Home use his foot in the séance room.[1]

Merrifield's daughter Margaret de Gaudrion Verrall (1857-1916) became a spiritualist medium.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Joseph McCabe. (1920). Spiritualism: A Popular History from 1847. Dodd, Mead and Company. pp. 110-112. A Mr. Merrifield was present at one of the sittings. Home's usual phenomena were messages, the moving of objects (presumably at a distance), and the playing of an accordion which he held with one hand under the shadow of the table. But from an early date in America he had been accustomed occasionally to "materialise" hands (as it was afterwards called). The sitters would, in the darkness, faintly see a ghostly hand and arm, or they might feel the touch of an icy limb. Mr. Merrifield and the other sitters saw a "spirit-hand" stretch across the faintly lit space of the window. But Mr. Merrifield says that Home sat, or crouched, low in a low chair, and that the "spirit-hand" was a false limb on the end of Home's arm. At other times, he says, he saw that Home was using his foot."
  2. ↑ A. W. Verrall. M. A. Bayfield, J. D. Duff. (2012). Collected Literary Essays: Classical and Modern. Cambridge University Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0521238083


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