William Thomas Stead (5 July 1849 – 15 April 1912) was an English newspaper editor & a pioneer of investigative journalism. Stead published a series of hugely influential campaigns, whilst editor of The Pall Mall Gazette and he is best known for his 1885  articles- The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, written in support of a bill to raise the age of consent from 13 to 16, dubbed as  the "Stead Act." C.W.Leadbeater, a highly developed clairvoyant & writer of sizeable no of Theosophical books, has mentioned him prominently in most of his writings. In the 1890s, Stead became increasingly interested in spiritualism. In 1893, he founded a spiritualist quarterly, called Borderland, in which he gave full play to his interest in psychical research. Stead was editor and he employed Ada Goodrich Freer as assistant editor: She was also a substantial contributor under the pseudonym "Miss X". Stead claimed that he was in the habit of communicating with Freer by telepathy and automatic writing. The magazine ceased publication in 1897. Stead claimed to be in receipt of messages from the spirit world and  in 1892, to be able to produce automatic writing. His spirit contact was alleged to be the departed Julia Ames, an American temperance reformer and journalist whom he met in 1890 shortly before her death. In 1909 he established Julia's Bureau, where inquirers could obtain information about the spirit world from a group of resident mediums. Stead died while travelling in the ill-fated Titanic. Ten years after the Titanic went down, Stead's daughter Estelle published "The Blue Island: Experiences of a New Arrival Beyond the Veil", which purported to be a communication with Stead via a medium, Pardoe Woodman. In the book, Stead described his death at sea and discussed the nature of the afterlife. The manuscript was produced using automatic writing, and Ms. Stead cited as proof of its authenticity the writer's habit of going back to cross "t's" and dot "i's" while proof-reading --- which she said was characteristic of her father's writing technique in life. If  interested in reading this book online, please visit:

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