Florence Cook (medium)

Florence Eliza Cook (ca 1856 – 22 April 1904) was a medium who claimed to materialise a spirit, "Katie King".

On one occasion, at a joint seance in Crookes's home in March 1874, Katie King was seen in company with "Florence Maple", a spirit materialised by the medium Mary Showers who was exposed as a fraud shortly thereafter.

At some point the audience would be shown a figure, apparently Florence, lying on the floor of the bedroom with her head covered by a shawl while Katie King was still visible in the parlour.

[13] Historian Courtney Raia has posited that Crookes' relationship with Cook had become romantic in nature and that his affair with the publicly criticized medium was a driving force behind his limited, yet supposedly genuine support.

[14] In 1880 another of Cook's materialisations was interrupted by one of the witnesses, George Sitwell, who seized the spirit figure and revealed that the medium was not in her chair.

[15] After studying the reports science historian Sherrie Lynne Lyons wrote "Katie" was Florence herself and at other times an accomplice.

Regarding Crookes, Lyons wrote "Here was a man with a flawless scientific reputation, who discovered a new element, but could not detect a real live maiden who was masquerading as a ghost.

"[16] Cook was played by Twiggy in 'The Frontiers of Science', the first episode of the 1976 Granada TV series Victorian Scandals.