The Dalston Association of Enquirers into Spiritualism started meeting weekly at 74 Navarino Road, in Dalston, in 1865, according to the Hackney Citizen, and quickly established itself as one of the pre-eminent organisations in a movement which captivated Victorian imaginations.
A regular attendee was William Henry Harrison, who went on to launch The Spiritualist newspaper and to co-found the British National Association of Spiritualists. The association's secretary, Thomas Blyton, was cultivating a teenage protegee from Hackney who said she had received a spirit message telling her to join his society. That young woman, Florence Cook, went on to be at the centre of the Katie King affair.
The Citizen article, which also covers Sutton House, includes the Dalston circle as an example of the borough's history of occult investigation. The house at 74 Navarino Road is still standing, shown in the article as a residential building, and the entry is here as a documented place associated with the history of British spiritualism.
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