Scottish writer, accountant, stockbroker and Essex magistrate, as well as a significant figure in the history of the religion of Spiritualism, being a partial founder of the newspaper Psychic News and also a founder of the International Institute for Psychical Research.
Aged 17, he had become interested in the field of comparative religion, something of which his staunchly Christian parents disapproved of – they even burned many of his books on the subject.
In 1913 he was awarded the title of Member of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his organisation work for the Red Cross.
In 1919, he began to believe in the practice of Spiritualism, after an encounter with a medium known as John Sloan. With his interest in various world religions, Findlay questioned the spirits that Sloan conjured, and came to the conclusions that most gods and other deities worshipped in religions were in fact simply spirits of deceased humans. His interest increased, and in 1920 he founded the Glasgow Society for Psychical Research.
In 1923 he took part in the Church of Scotland’s enquiry into psychic phenomenon. In the same year, he retired from his profession and purchased Stansted Hall in Stansted, England, a manor house built in 1871.
In 1932, he became a founding member of Psychic News, a Spiritualist newspaper, along with Hannen Swaffer and Maurice Barbanell.
He also helped to found the International Institute for Psychical Research, of which he became the chairman. He also became an honorary member of both the American Foundation for Psychical Research, Edinburgh Psychic College and the honorary president of both the Institute of Psychic Writers and Artists and the Spiritualists’ National Union.
He died on 24 July 1964.
Link to Wikipedia biography