Sir William Crookes, OM, FRS (17 June 1832 – 4 April 1919) was a British chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry, London, and worked on spectroscopy. He was a pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing the Crookes tube.

William Crookes was born in London, the eldest son of Joseph Crookes, a tailor of north-country origin, and his second wife, Mary Scott.

Meteorologist and lecturer at multiple places.

From 1850 to 1854 he filled the position of assistant in the college, and soon embarked upon original work, not in organic chemistry where the inspiration of his teacher, August Wilhelm von Hofmann, might have been expected to lead him, but on new compounds of selenium. These formed the subject of his first published papers in 1851.

Leaving the Royal College, he became superintendent of the meteorological department at the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford in 1854, and in 1855 was appointed lecturer in chemistry at the Chester Diocesan Training College.

Married now and living in London, he was devoted mainly to independent work. After 1880, he lived at 7 Kensington Park Gardens, where all his later work was carried out in his private laboratory. Crookes's life was one of unbroken scientific activity. The breadth of his interests, ranging over pure and applied science, economic and practical problems, and psychical research, made him a well-known personality, and he received many public and academic honours. In 1859, he founded the Chemical News, a science magazine which he edited for many years and conducted on much less formal lines than is usual with journals of scientific societies.

Coordinates: 53°23′02″N 1°30′29″W / 53.384°N 1.508°W / 53.384; -1.508

Crookes is a suburb of the City of Sheffield, England, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) west of the city centre. It borders Broomhill to the south, Walkley and Crookesmoor to the east and open countryside around the River Rivelin to the north. The suburb is said to derive its name from the Old Norse "Krkor" which means a nook or corner of land.

The Bole Hills ( 53°23′26″N 1°30′38″W / 53.390597°N 1.510491°W / 53.390597; -1.510491 (Bole Hills) ) at Crookes, overlooking the Rivelin Valley, was the site of open air smelting, and Bronze Age (about 1500 BC) funerary remains, similar to those of contemporary tribes sometimes called the Urn people, were found near this site in 1887. Sidney Addy reports the find in his 1888 book on the Sheffield area citing;

"On Easter Sunday [1887] Mr. Herbert T. Watkinson, of Summer Street, was walking in Cocked Hat Lane, (later to become Tinker Lane) near the Bole Hills, at Crookes, when he noticed in the side of an excavation that had been made for the foundations of some new houses what looked like a drain pipe. Closer examination revealed two rude earthenware urns, one inverted within the other, and the two containing a quantity of calcined bones, some broken fragments of a bronze spear-head or dagger, and a smaller urn pierced on one side with two round holes. The outer urn fell to pieces, but the one inverted within it was recovered whole. It is of a type very common in British burial mounds, and stands 9½ inches high, and measures across the mouth 7¼ inches, while the largest circumference is 26 inches. It is ornamented with the familiar straight and diagonal lines, and rows of dots. The urns lay six or eight inches below the surface, and were surrounded with charcoal. We are glad to hear that this curious relic of our ancient British ancestors will be exhibited in the Weston Park Museum."

Leslie Flint (1911–1994) was a British medium who is credited as having been one of the last psychics to use direct-voice mediumship. He has been described as the most renowned psychic of the 20th century.

Flint was born in London in 1911 and reached the peak of his fame from the 1930s to the 1960s. He was famous for contacting the spirits of dead celebrities, and would often record his sessions. He claimed his familiar, Mickey, was the ghost of a child who had been killed in 1910. Flint claimed to have seen his first spirit at the age of seven when his dead uncle appeared to him in his home. He conducted his first séance at the age of 17.

In his early life, he worked in as a cinema usher and a cemetery gardener. Flint was a conscientious objector, serving in a non-military capacity in World War II. He never charged for his services as a medium.

The first public séance performed by Flint was in 1955, just after he formed an association called the Temple of Light.

Flint was an avid fan of Rudolph Valentino and acquired the only known copy of footage from The Young Rajah.