| Harold Dearden | |
| Birth Date: | 13 December 1882 |
| Birth Place: | Bolton |
| Death Place: | Hay-on-Wye |
| Occupation: | Psychiatrist, screenwriter |
Harold Dearden (13 December 1882 – 6 July 1962) was a British psychiatrist and screenwriter.
Dearden was born in Bolton, Lancashire. He was educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and London Hospital. He qualified as a physician in 1911.[1]
During World War I, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was a medical officer for the 3rd Battalion of the Grenadier Guards. In 1916, he became honorary Captain. At the Battle of the Somme he was wounded, suffering from a lost eye and shell shock. He was later invalided out of the war.[1] [2] [3]
During World War II, Dearden worked as a psychiatrist and was principal interrogator at Camp 020.[3]
He wrote the play Interference (with Roland Pertwee). He also wrote the Two White Arms which became a successful film.[1] In 1943, he married Ann Verity Gibson Watt, and they had four children.[2]
He died at his home in Hay-on-Wye from cerebral thrombosis.[1]
Dearden was skeptical of claims of psychical phenomena and spiritualism. In his book Devilish But True: The Doctor Looks at Spiritualism (1936), he compared cases of witchcraft to spiritualist mediums. He noted the similarity of hysterical behaviour and hallucinations.[4]
In 1927, he wrote an article How Spiritualists are Deluded.[5] Dearden attended séances and was a judge for a group formed by the Sunday Chronicle to investigate the materialization medium Harold Evans. During a séance Evans was exposed as a fraud. He was caught masquerading as a spirit, in a white nightshirt.[6]