Thomas Glendenning Hamilton

Thomas Glendenning Hamilton (1873-1935) was a Canadian physician, school board trustee and provincial legislator who is best remembered for his investigations of spiritualism. Born in Agincourt, now part of Toronto, he moved with his family to Winnipeg and graduated as a doctor of medicine from the Manitoba Medical College in 1903. He lectured there in medical jurisprudence and clinical surgery, served as an assistant surgeon at Winnipeg General Hospital, became a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1920 and was president of the Canadian Medical Association in 1922. He sat in the Manitoba legislature as a Liberal from 1915 to 1920. From the early 1920s he held seances in his Winnipeg home with his wife and daughter and photographed what he took to be ectoplasm, although skeptics have suggested the images were made of tissue paper and cut-out photographs. His family papers are held by the University of Manitoba Archives.