A Wonderful Account of Estelle Roberts’ Mediumship Sent in by Lew Sutton .
I’m in the process of digitising a host of articles featuring, amongst other things, fascinating accounts of mediumship from yesteryear. Some are from the early days of Spiritualism and some, like this one below, are of mediums who were still alive and demonstrating in my lifetime. In fact, I actually had a private sitting with Estelle Roberts in the 1960’s. How I wish I had made notes of the sitting, but you know how it is – we think are memories are infallible! Estelle Roberts had practically retired by then and gave me a sitting as a favour. She passed on in 1970.
Estelle filled the Royal Albert Hall many times with her demonstrations and is perhaps the only medium to have demonstrated to MPs in the House of Commons, which helped change the law making mediumship legal. As you will see from the account below, she not only gave public demonstrations to large audiences but also provided the chance for a few to attend the more intimate seances where sitters could sometimes speak to directly to their departed loved ones.
A brief summary of her life is at https://www.insightsfromspirit.com/estelle_roberts.html Her autobiography paperback is expensive to buy (£50 plus) but a free to download at https://archive.org/stream/FIFTYYEARSAMEDIUMbyEstelleRoberts/FIFTYYEARSAMEDIUMbyEstelleRoberts_djvu.txt
So here is a touching account by F.W FitzSimons who saw her at a public meeting and then at a private séance.
Lew Sutton
Visit to an Estelle Roberts Voice séance by F.W. FitzSimons FZS FRMS
After a visit to Italy, I returned to London, and went to a Sunday service at the Grotrian Hall, sitting in the audience with a friend. The hall was packed, and many failed to gain admission. Mrs Estelle Roberts was the clairvoyant for the occasion. After the address, she gave clairvoyance, selecting members of the audience at random.
This medium is remarkable in that she usually gives both Christian and surnames. If the person does not recognise the name or description of the spirit she is describing, further evidence is tendered; it is often most convincing. For instance, she selected me.
“You there, and she pointed. I raised my hand. “Yes, that’s right”, then she proceeded to say: “There is a young lady in a robe of mauve standing near you; she wears a girdle of twisted rope of gold, caught up on the left, and with three knotted tassels. She gives the name of Annie – Abbie Russell, she is your cousin, and passed out when she was about twenty years of age. She says Doctor is here – Dr Charles Morgan. You have two sons, she has a third with her in spirit land. Is that correct?” she asked.
“Yes”, I replied, “every word of it”.
As a matter of fact, every time my cousin has appeared, she has been described to me exactly as above.
I stood up, faced the great audience, and publicly declared that all the medium had said was true, even to details. A clergyman friend and I booked private sittings with Mrs Roberts through the MSA (now the SAGB) in London.
We visited her as perfect strangers, and the medium was in no way curious. She did not even ask our names. In bidding us adieu she, as an afterthought, called to us and gave us an invitation to be guests at her next private Direct Voice Circle which was to be held on the following Friday. Naturally we accepted and were there at the appointed time.
The seance was held in an upstairs room in her house reserved for the purpose. It was bare of furniture excepting the chairs on which the people sat. The circle consisted of eight personal friends of the medium plus us. The door was locked, the light turned out, and the sitters sang hymns.
We had only sat a few minutes when one of the trumpets was raised, and it travelled right round the circle, tapping each person on the knee in greeting. Everybody, by the way, had their hands linked with those of their neighbours’. Then from high up in the air, we heard the low guttural voice of Red Cloud, the Guide. He greeted my friend and me, and said we were heartily welcome.
At this seance the singing died down to a mere hum when a spirit started to speak, so that even a whisper could be heard. I will now relate the personal proofs my friend and I obtained at this seance.
Up rose a trumpet, which, of course, is for the purpose of amplifying and concentrating the spirit voice.
‘Arthur, Arthur (the Padre’s name), it is Gertie speaking. Do you hear me? Speak, speak! Can this really be; am I actually speaking to you Arthur?’ Taken aback, my friend was dumb with surprise until I exhorted him to speak.
,,Yes, yes, I can hear you. Gertie! is it, can it be you?”
“It is I, my dear, my loved one. I send you all my love; and I want You to know that I am waiting for you. I am alive, alive, and just the same.
“The growth ‑ the growth ‑ it has gone. I do not suffer any more. I am well and strong again. Your father is with me; and also my sister ‑ yes ‑ yes, my sister Margy.”
A further hymn was sung; then a clear bell‑like Irish voice from some six feet in the air came through the trumpet.
“Fred, Fred!” “Are you speaking to me?” I asked the voice.
“Yes! It is Annie speaking ‑ your cousin Annie Russell. Your sister Norah is here, also your mother. I will speak to you later through the medium in trance. Did you feel me touch you?”
A little while previously I had felt a soft hand drawn across my cheek.
“Fred! Your sister Norah is speaking. Do you remember your Norah ‑ your sister? I was drowned when a little girl; but I have grown up, in the spirit world, to a woman. Fred! Mother is here; she cannot speak tonight. She says, ‘Give all my love to my dear boy’. Goodbye, goodbye.”
A clear resonant voice announced himself to be Stead ‑ WT. Stead of journalistic fame. He spoke for a full ten minutes without the slightest hesitation and departed after calling down a blessing from God on all present.. 
ESTELLE ROBERTS