It would be nice to be able to travel to the past if only to experience what it was like to live in an era completely different than the one we’re living in, but time-travel is mostly confined to the realm of science fiction. But there is one quite famous 20th-century story about two respected Oxford professors who claimed that they traveled back in time to late 18th century Versailles.
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Those two professors published a book titled An Adventure which came out in 1911, under pseudonyms Elizabeth Morison and Frances Lamont. They recounted how, on a holiday from England, they went to the Palace of Versailles, and found themselves exploring a place unfamiliar to them, where they saw people wearing old-fashioned clothes and the locations of buildings apparently shifted.
They even claimed to have seen the Queen Marie Antoinette. It was such an extraordinary experience that the book became a sensational hit. However, due to the nature of their experience, they chose to hide their true identities. Despite that, people were still able to find out who they were, because they told their students about their experience.
Those two professors were Eleanor Jourdain and Charlotte Moberly of St. Hugh’s College, University of Oxford. At the time, such claims of supernatural experiences had been examined, investigated, and perhaps, even debunked by an organization called the Society for Psychical Research. The main directive of the organization was to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal.
The SPR is dedicated to conducting scholarly research and are very thorough in scrutinizing any claims of supernatural events. However, when they were presented with Moberly and Jourdain’s seemingly time-traveling exploits, the body never reached a consensus on its legitimacy. The skeptics proposed several possible explanations from a garden party to heat exhaustion, and even, double madness.
So, given the university’s conservative leanings at the time, the women chose to keep their identities secret. The book stayed a hit and the professors continued with their careers. Several years later, Moberly retired as principal and Jourdain replaced her. Things weren’t as smooth for Jourdain as she faced backlash from younger fellows who disliked her strictness.
Later on, many teachers resigned when Jourdain fired one of their fellows, with which the teachers disagreed. Jourdain would later suffer from a heart attack and die on April 6, 1924. Thirteen years later, Moberly also passed away. The two women both have massive portraits displayed at the college, although their book is rarely mentioned, if ever, on the St. Hugh’s website.
(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Source: neatorama