British Homeopathy during two centuries by Peter Morrell

by Peter Morrell

   

SPEIGHTS

Phyllis
Speight

     The Speights [Leslie
and Phyllis] were important as publishers of homeopathic books, first
through The Homeopathic Publishing Co and then through Health
Science Press. They published many reprints of 19th century classics
like Clarke’s Dictionary and Dudgeon’s translation of Hahnemann’s
Organon as well as many modern works. This work greatly helped UK
homeopathy through those dark days of stagnation and decline.

     The retired homeopathic
publisher Leslie Speight died on May 28 1995, just a few days after his
94th birthday. He is perhaps better known as the husband of the
homeopath Phyllis Speight and through his publishing endeavours.

     Leslie Speight was the
owner and director of Homeopathic Publishing Company and later of
Health Science Press, both of which dominated homeopathic
publishing in Britain for most of this century. Leslie focused most of
his energy into publishing, only writing a couple of books himself, Homeopathy
and Immunisation and Sports Injuries and their Treatment by
Homeopathy and Acupressure, 1989.

     The Speights both made
regular contributions to Heal Thyself, The Homeopathic World many
times in the 1940s and 50s. After the death of J Ellis Barker in August
1948, the journal was run by an editorial team that included Phyllis. It
was eventually taken over by the Speights, Phyllis becoming Editor in
1952. With a declining readership for homeopathy after the 1946 NHS Act,
the magazine had to broaden into a general health and fitness type of
magazine in order to ‘stay afloat’ and it thus became less and less
overtly homeopathic as time went on. It finally fizzled out c.1967.

     Throughout the 1960s
and 70s the Speights published many homeopathic books under the Health
Science Press banner. These were popular before Thorsons came on the
scene in the mid-1970s. Examples include Clarke’s The Prescriber
and Dictionary, Puddephatt’s small books and Dorothy Shepherd’s
books as well as others on Radionics and Nature Cure. It is very largely
to their credit, industry and great foresight that homeopathy kept going
at all throughout those dark years.

     One presumes that
Leslie was descended from the family of Leslie J Speight and Partners,
a general contractors and hauliers based at Kingsway, WC2 in 1935 and at
Caxton St, SW1 in 1945 [see London Telephone Directories, in BT
Archive, Millbank, London]. The firm had ceased trading by the time of
the Jan 1963 Telephone Directory. Leslie Speight was not a
practitioner of homeopathy but primarily a publisher and a great
supporter of the homeopathic cause.

     He was one of Edwin
Tomkins’ original team in 1946 when he founded the Incorporated
Institute of Homeopaths for lay homeopaths, after a large public
rally in Caxton Hall. The Speights set up Health Science Press in the
1950s, and through it, and later C W Daniel & Co, they kept the
homeopathic flag flying right through the years of ‘homeopathic dearth’
c.1950-80. In those days before the Homeopathic Colleges, without all
those books, many would-be homeopaths would never have got beyond the
early interest stage, let alone into practice.

“He is the owner of Homeopathic Publishing Co,
and must be nearly 90 by now” [Brown, 1992]

     He married the
homeopath Phyllis M. Rowntree in 1952. She was based at Nightingale
House, Du Cane Rd, London, W12, until 1964 when she took over Noel
Puddephatt’s practice in Devonshire Street, W1. By 1971 she was back at
Nightingale House, Du Cane Road [see London Telephone Directories].
My assumption here is that the property was sold after Pudephatt’s
death, which might have occurred in 1971. Several times I have tried in
vain to obtain a copy of his Death Certificate from the South African
Embassy in London.

     She had been a student
of Noel Puddephatt and his homeopathic assistant in the 1950s. [see
article about her in Devon Life, Apr 1990]. She was apprenticed
to Noel Puddephatt c.1951-55, in Brighton and Bognor, then in London.
They were also on excellent terms with all the London lay homeopaths of
the 40s and 50s like Darnell Cooper, F Parker Woods, Edward Cotter, J
Ellis Barker, Edwin Tomkins and Arthur Jenner.

“Phyllis Speight studied the philosophy and
Materia Medica of homeopathy for 4 years before going into partnership
with Noel Puddephatt. They practised first in Brighton and then in
London. When Mr Puddephatt went abroad [he emigrated to S Africa in
April 1963], Phyllis Speight continued to work in London, and expanded
her practice to include first Hampshire and then Sussex.

“In Dec. 1974 she and her husband moved to
Devon to retire, but at her patient’s request she started working
again. Apart from contributing articles to magazines and journals, she
is also the author of several other authoritative works on
homeopathy.” [Speight, 1979, preface].

     In 1979 she briefly
resuscitated The Homeopathic World editing it with the
scientologist and homeopath Dr. Edward Hamlyn of Plymouth. It lasted
only 2 years. Phyllis Speight, [born 1912/3] in practice since c.1955,
77 years old in Apr 1990, editor of Homeopathic World 1952-67,
practised in London and Sussex

     Between 1948-1995
Phyllis Speight has published numerous small books on various aspects of
homeopathy. Many are bestsellers within the natural health movement.