Set of infamous hoax photographs created by two girls during WWI that fooled world for decades sells for over £3,000

A set of infamous hoax photographs created by two girls during WWI that fooled the world for decades has sold for over £3,000.

The five Cottingley Fairies images were taken between 1917 and 1920 by 16-year-old Elsie Wright and her nine-year-old cousin, Frances Griffiths.

The hoax even tricked Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was so convinced of their authenticity that he published them in a national magazine in 1920.

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The girls later admitted they used coloured paper cut-outs and hatpins to stage their scenes, near a stream.

It was at the end of Elsie’s garden, in the village of Cottingley, near Bingley, West Yorkshire.

Despite admitting four of the images were faked, Frances always insisted that one photograph was genuine.

This week, the collection was auctioned by John Taylor’s auction house in Louth, Lincs.

They were sold by a family from Devon, who realised what the images were after seeing them featured on the BBC Antiques Roadshow, as reported by What’s The Jam.

Expert James Laverack said: “In 1917, sixteen-year-old Elsie Wright and her cousin, nine-year-old Frances Griffiths, took two pictures of themselves with fairies and a gnome that they said lived around the beck at the bottom of their garden in the village of Cottingley in West Yorkshire”.

“When the news began to spread, photographic experts were asked to examine the glass plate negatives.

“Their verdict was that there was no evidence of tampering.

“Some of them went even further and said the pictures were not fakes.

“The story went global when Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
wrote about the Cottingley Fairies in The Strand Magazine.

“Meanwhile, the famous spiritualist Edward Gardner got the girls to take three more photographs with cameras that he supplied, and he then had high-quality prints of all the photographs hand-printed.

“He used them for lectures around the country and sold some sets at the events.

“It was two of those prints that went under the hammer in our auction prints that once belonged to Frances Griffiths, one of the girls who appears in the photographs with the fairies.

“The news coverage of that auction resulted in the new photographs being sent to us by a lady living in the Okehampton area of Devon.

“It is a complete set that is believed to have been bought by the vendor’s
grandmother, Bideford farmer’s daughter Clare Risdon – or perhaps her sister Betty – at an Edward Gardner spiritualist lecture.

“The photographs cost fifteen shillings – just 75 pence – but in 1920 you could rent a house in London for fifteen shillings a week.

“They’ve since been passed down, or more accurately, the bureau in which
They have always been kept and passed down from generation to generation, during which time the memory of what they were simply faded away.

“It was only when Frances Griffiths’ daughter appeared on an episode of the
Antiques Roadshow in 2009, with some of the photographs and one of the cameras that they realised that they had a full set of Cottingley Fairy photographs sitting in their antique bureau – and it was only later that they realised just how rare the high-quality Gardener prints now are.

“The set does include the intriguing fifth and final photograph – the one that Francis Griffiths continued to believe showed a real fairy even after the girls admitted they had faked the rest.

“Photography experts have suggested that it was likely an accidental double exposure of one of the fairy cutouts in the grass, resulting in one of the hoaxers hoaxing herself.”

The collection sold at auction for £3,100.

Mr Laverack added, “Nobody knows how many were produced; they occasionally come up at auction, but they are very rare, as most have been destroyed.”

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