MAURICE GROSSE: Researcher

[Karyn]

Maurice Grosse was born in London, England in 1919 and was educated at the Regent Street Polytechnic.  He was an apprentice learning commercial art and design when WWII began. He left his appointment and joined the military, becoming part of the Second Artillery. In 1944, he met and married Betty Yasny and they had two daughters and a son. He turned to inventing after the war and filed many mechanical patents, including a rotating advertising billboard. By 1961 Grosse founded his own design and engineering consulting business.

Grosse’s life changed after his daughter, Janet, was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1976. He and his family witnessed psychic happenings that led him to join the Society for Psychic Research and The Ghost Club. He soon became an investigator.

The next year he was called to record the poltergeist activity in a house in Enfield, North London. It was the home of single mother Peggy Hodgson and her four children, Margret (12), Janet (11), Johnny (10) and Billy (7). The activity began in August. Peggy woke to her daughters screaming. When she entered their bedroom, she witnessed the chest of drawers moving away from the wall all by itself. That was followed by shaking beds and disembodied voices. When the police were called in, one witnessed a chair moving across the room.

In September, Grosse arrived to investigate the activity. He stayed at the house for long periods and collected hours of cassette and videotape evidence of the phenomena. As time passed, Peggy’s daughter, Janet, began speaking with the deep, gravelly voice of an old man. Sceptics claimed that the voice was a trick. Grosse offered £1,000 to anyone who could duplicate the voice but there were no takers. The voice eventually identified himself as Bill. Grosse discovered that Bill Wilkins was the former owner of the house. He had passed away in the living room, blind and alone. Grosse was joined by psychical investigator, Guy Lyon Playfair, who wrote the book This House is Haunted (1980) based on their experiences.

Grosse became famous for his Enfield House recordings, but he also investigated many other cases. He served as a member of the Society for Psychical Research’s Council and was the Chairman of its Spontaneous Cases Committee. In 1995 Grosse was investigating Charlton House when he witnessed a piece of crockery materialize and shatter. In 2000 he recorded poltergeist knockings on videotape at another home in London. He also investigated numerous claims o precognition and compiled an extensive collection of examples of psychic photography. He continued working right up until the summer of 2006. He died in October of that year.

Further Information:

https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/maurice-grosse

Videos:

https://www.historyvshollywood.com/video/the-enfield-poltergeist-images/

(quite interesting video above)