Henry Jotham Newton

Henry Jotham Newton (born February 23, 1823 in Hartleton , Union County , Pennsylvania , † December 23, 1895 in Manhattan , New York ) was an American inventor , photographer , spiritualist and theosophist .

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Newton was a piano manufacturer from 1849 to 1858 , together with William Batchelder Bradbury , Edward G. Bradbury and Ferdinand C. Lighte , he developed the Bradbury Piano , known in the USA , named after William Batchelder Bradbury . After 1858 he turned his hobby, photography , into his profession, and it was here that he made some inventions with photographic chemicals. He was also President of the First Society of Spiritualists in New York.

He was a co-founder and member of the Theosophical Society (TG). On September 7, 1875, Newton was present at a lecture given by George Henry Felt at Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's apartment in New York. Felt had claimed that he could use evocation to establish contact with the elementals of earth, water, fire and air. This was ultimately the impetus for the founding of the TG and had also instigated its objective at the time , the scientific research of occultism . The next day, September 8th, Newton was a co-signer of the Articles of Association for the TG and at a meeting on October 30th, he was elected treasurer or treasurer of the company. When, at the turn of the year 1875/76, Felt had still not delivered a demonstration of his evocation despite repeated warnings and kept delaying the fulfillment of this promise, it finally became obvious that he could not fulfill his promise. For Newton, the goals of the TG and thus the entire organization had become obsolete and after only a few months of membership, he resigned from the TG.

Since the publication of Blavatsky's work Isis unveiled on September 29, 1877, Newton was opposed to the TG because he did not agree with the content of the book. He later claimed that it was he who, after Felt's lecture, first had the idea of ​​founding a society to investigate occult phenomena. This was in contrast to the "official" version that the idea of ​​founding the TG came from Henry Steel Olcott .

He was married to Mary A. Gates since May 8, 1850 . He had become a millionaire through his activities as a piano maker as well as through successful property speculations in New York. He died in 1895 after being run over by a streetcar on Broadway .

Web links

• Short biography and events related to photography (English)
• The emergence of the Bradbury piano (English)