Step into the shadowed avenues of Abney Park Cemetery for an evening exploring one of Victorian London's obsessions: photographing the dead. 

It's 1872, and a new phase of British Spiritualism is developing. Driven by the Victorian need for evidence of the afterlife, the collodion process of early photography seemed to hold the key to ghost manifestation — a potential upgrade for Spiritualism from faith to science. 

Few places suit this story better than Abney Park. Charles Dickens told a ghost story here at the graveside of his friend William Hone, whose funeral he attended in 1842. Edgar Allan Poe, once a schoolboy on neighbouring Church Street, haunts the grounds in spirit through his tales of doubles and hauntings. Daniel Defoe, credited with writing the first modern ghost story, lived within sight of the cemetery's gates. And among the graves themselves lies Georgiana Eagle, a clairvoyant medium, promoting herself as a spiritualist before the movement had even properly begun.

This talk explores the concept of capturing spirits on camera, and the deceptions of the first UK spirit photographer, unmasked in the 1870s by none other than the Psychic and Spiritualistic societies themselves.

For more information:‍ ‍‍ Please visit https://abneypark.org/upcoming-events/2026/8/31/ghosting-up-against-the-sensitive-plate-a-history-of-london-spirit-photography to buy tickets for this event.