When exploring Brisbane’s esoteric past, evidence can be difficult to uncover. In the case of an unlikely duo of spiritualist healers, there was a sign …
Zooming in on an otherwise unremarkable photograph of Adelaide Street, this notice catches the eye:
Newham Waterworth, Mesmerist and Magnetic Healer. Alfred A. Buckley, Medical Clairvoyant. Consultation Free.
A celebrated mesmerist
A small audience gathered at the Moses Ward and Sons Chemists on Queen Street in November 1897 to witness a demonstration of anaesthesia by hypnosis. Travelling mesmerist Newham Waterworth put a willing patient into ‘mesmeric sleep’ in the presence of a reverend, a doctor and a Courier journalist.
Alfred A Buckley was in the operating chair, awaiting the extraction of eighteen decaying teeth. He sat upright, conscious, but seemingly immune to the catastrophic pain of the procedure. Waterworth appeared to have achieved successful hypnosis, although it is uncertain whether this impressed his curated audience.
Unsurprisingly, the two men were not strangers. In fact, they were part of a new wave of pseudo-scientific medical practitioners, borne by the rise in popularity of spiritualism.
John Newham Waterworth was born in 1867, later immigrating to Tasmania from the UK with his family in 1887 and finding work as a tailor. Waterworth was a true believer. He developed a keen interest in the world of ‘magnetic healing’ and ‘mesmerism’ as a means to treat a variety of conditions, moonlighting his new-found abilities while continuing to hold work as a tailor. He made his way up the east coast of Australia, landing paid work in Fortitude Valley Drapery Overell’s where he would meet the man who would become his ‘medical clairvoyant’.
Brisbanite Alfred Amos Buckley, born 1877, was a being spiritually tuned into the needs of an alternative apothecary. He became Waterworth’s protégé and – following their 1897 demonstration – graduated to the role of official assistant. Waterworth was now calling himself a ‘celebrated mesmerist.’
John Newham Waterworth (left) and Alfred Amos Buckley (right).
Free Consultation to the Sick and the Suffering
Sydney based magnetic healer Prof. R. H. Barraden suggested that those new to the field were ‘entering on very debatable ground. While getting a profession to live by, he is accepting a cause he must fight for – fight for it even against many who deny that it is a science at all or has any legitimate title to the name it bears.’
From: Prof R H Barraden's 'Magnetic Healing Pamphlet'.
Waterworth and Buckley’s first demonstrations as an official duo were in regional Queensland. Waterworth gave an inaugural lecture to a crowd of the curious in Toowoomba’s Town Hall in early 1898. He spoke of the great medicinal benefits of mesmerism, hypnotism and newly ‘clairvoyance’ (of sorts). Reported by The Darling Downs Gazette, Buckley also gave a demonstration:
‘Mr Buckley was … thrown into the three stages, first the lethargic, secondly the somnambulistic, and thirdly the clairvoyant. While in the clairvoyant state, Mr Buckley gave several recipes. The audience were invited to name complaints for which recipes were desired.
‘One was given for consumption. Mr Groom called for one for dengue fever and Mr Marlay one for whooping cough. The following were the recipes given by Mr Buckley (who it may be mentioned knows nothing whatever of medicine or the properties of drugs while in his normal state).’
The pair were committed to being ‘severely tested,’ challenging their audience to prod and poke at their legitimacy. If the questions became too probing, they would claim that excess energy in the room was causing clairvoyant interference. Or, in the long tradition of faith healers, exhaustion would set in. They repeated this inscrutable performance, later accepting patients across Toowoomba, Warwick, Gympie and Ipswich. Following these regional excursions, the pair returned to Brisbane.
Quacks and Quackery
The Beltana Magnetic and Clairvoyant Institute was established in the Wakefield Building on the intersection of Edward St and Adelaide St – opposite the original Finney, Isles & Co building. Managed by Aldred Collard, the first-floor balcony promoted both Waterworth and Buckley, and the astonishing services they offered.
The Original Finney, Isles & Co Building (left) & Wakefield Building (right).
Such public advertising of curious services did not go unnoticed. A July 1903 issue of the Truth took direct aim. ‘Now who is Newham Waterworth,’ wrote the paper, ‘and who is Buckley! What of them? Whence came they? Well, “Truth” will proceed to say.’ The paper revealed that Waterworth was a simple tailor and that Buckley ‘he of the beautiful, busted boko’ was also employed by Overell's & Co as a ‘broom sweeper.’
Buckley was regular fodder for the Truth, with claims that Waterworth was using him like a tool. ‘He played on their gullibility, and filled them up with no end of rubbish concerning his powers,’ one column wrote. ‘He now pretended that he was able to diagnose complaints by means of a power which possessed of seeing right through the human body and viewing clearly all the internal organs … Buckley was the medium and in an alleged hypnotic slumber he would tell from what their patients were suffering.’
Waterworth was furious. He was indignant at the prejudice of sceptics and unbelievers, and those from The Truth that would call them ‘quacks and vampires who fatten and batten on the credulous fools in our midst.’ He and his newly betrothed, Edith Alice, left Brisbane for Tasmania later that year. Waterworth left the unseen world behind with a more respectable career in sight ...
Divorce of a Medical Clairvoyant
Alfred Buckley’s first wife of 3 years, Nellie Way Wardley, died from illness in 1902, leaving behind their son Alfred ‘Newham’ Buckley. Following Waterworth’s exodus in 1904, Buckley began rebuilding his life by promoting clairvoyant healing (and now, psychometry) as a solo practitioner, with a more traditional form of spiritualist spectacle.
In 1905 he invited the Truth to return to witness a 200-strong congregation sing ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ before listening to his musings on faith, spirit photography and psychic phenomena. The newspaper, predictably, was not won over: ‘Truth’s religious editor,' wrote an editorial, 'would like to straightaway whisper to Mr Buckley that a case of nourishing Brown Stout, as advertised in our business columns, would build up his system and do him the world of good.’
Throughout the remaining half of the decade, Buckley re-married and fathered two children with Lily Rose Skyring of Northgate. His work kept him on the road, travelling often between cities, maintaining work as a clairvoyant healer. Despite his psychic gifts, however, he did not forsee this marriage becoming his second very public humiliation.
Skyring sought a divorce in 1912, claiming infidelity. She presented a letter he’d sent as just cause. Many years of sideshow theatrics and defensive postures had ingrained itself in Buckley. So indignant was his letter that papers across the country chose to print it in full.
‘Dear Lily,’ the letter begins, ‘Once again I take up my pen to write to you, and, perhaps, for the last time on this earth. I have been judged, condemned and sentenced, hence defence is now useless.’
Buckley lasts only a few sentences holding back his defence.
‘Now the most cruel report has come to me - that I, Alfred Buckley, have cleared out with Molly Dolling, and that you believe it. You, who have shared my life, and the mother of my children. Fancy me, in the state of extreme poverty, going away with a good woman. Molly, as we will call her, is a pure-girl, and her last wish would be to harm you.’
Molly ‘as we will call her’ was assisting Buckley on his interstate travels as a personal assistant and secretary.
‘ … if you wish to return to me I'll come for you as far as Brisbane. You will favour me by letting me know my fate : if I do not receive a reply then I will understand it is the end of our married life, and it is you who have broken the vows (till death do us part) which you vowed six years ago the day you receive this letter.’
It goes on (and on).
‘Good bye, unless I hear from you. For I swear before my God, this is my last letter, un- less I hear from you. Good bye. - Yours once. Alf.’
Skyring's lawyer observed of the verbose reading: ‘That was written by a man who eight months afterwards went to West Australia and signed a declaration that he was the father of a child by Molly Dolling.’
The divorce was granted.
Buckley married for the third and final time to the aforementioned Maria ‘Mollie’ May Dolling in 1913. He continued his practice on Wickham St, Fortitude Valley in the following years, later branching out to herbal remedies and (failed) pawpaw ointments before moving to Sydney to focus on his growing family. His curious ventures joined the spirits in the afterlife, their calls unanswered by a battle-worn clairvoyant.
Alfred Amos Buckley died in Paramatta, 1931. His death records list his occupation as ‘salesman’.
Waterworth family photograph taken in Hobart, 1918.
Indignation and Optometry
John Newham Waterworth successfully pivoted to become the patriarch of a family of over-achievers. He became well respected as an optometrist in a relatively short period of time, making a name for himself as a passionate advocate of the industry. His wife Edith Alice Walker was a noted welfare worker and women’s right activist, celebrated for her community leadership and advocacy. The pair tried their hand at local politics, and both were partial to incensed ‘letters to the editor.’
Their sons all followed in the optical family trade. Philip and Eric were key players at the Optical Munitions Annexe during the Second World War, producing much-needed weapon sights for the war effort. With the necessary knowledge, tools and materials in desperately short supply, everything had to be produced from scratch.
Eric in particular was a gifted inventor. He most notably built the audio equipment for Hobart’s first post-silent era movie theatre, The Avalon. He also produced the Waterworth projector, sold all across Australia in the decade following the war. He developed a close association with the University of Tasmania, with the Optical Munitions Annexe later renamed in his honour.
John Newham Waterworth died in Tasmania in 1949, leaving behind a bold legacy, of which his magnetic healing and mentalist exploits were likely a mere footnote.
For more fascinating stories of Queensland's esoteric past (plus a lot more), visit State Library of Queensland's free exhibition Dearly Departed: death in life, on show until 23 August ...
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