Edwin A. Dawes, 1925-2023

[Marco Pusterla]

On Friday, March 3rd 2023, Dr. Prof. Edwin A. Dawes, probably the greatest magic historian ever, passed away peacefully at Hull Royal Infirmary in Hull, England. He leaves two sons, their families, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

His passing is quite unexpected and sudden: he had only been ill a couple of days and from the very outset was given the best possible care and attention for pneumonia but did not respond to treatment. He then quietly passed away this evening.

His work will be his greatest legacy.

May he rest in peace.

[AJM]

Sad news and a great loss.

[Richard Kaufman]

A pity. He was a great and generous man.

[Joe Lyons]

Mr. Dawes prolificacy was incredible. His many books on magic and 500 articles in The Rich Cabinet, most of which(as mentioned on another forum) were researched without the benefit of the internet, stands alone.

Meanwhile, at his day job as a biochemist, he managed to write a couple of seminal works used as textbooks and was published in six languages.

An amazing legacy.

[Edward Pungot]

The Great Illusionists by Edwin Dawes is a great book worth revisiting or checking out. The Rich Cabinet seems to be like Dorothy Gale stepping into Oz for the first time (I can only imagine thanks to Magicana).

Biology Chemistry Magic Alchemy

We look so deeply into our collective imaginations and dreams. Then we look outside of ourselves and find an equally magical place. Thanks Prof. Dawes for bringing the magic of both worlds to our attention.

[El Mystico]

Years ago I wrote to him asking him a couple of questions about Malini and Leipzig. He wrote back, with a few photocopied pages from old magazines. I replied thanking him, and sending some money to cover the cost of the photocopies. He replied thanking me, saying few people thought of the cost of photocopying, and including a few more photocopied articles on Malini and Leipzig, which were particularly interesting. A man generous with his knowledge.

[Richard Stokes]

An honourable gentleman. In September 2009 he wrote me an apologetic letter expressing his frustration and anger that Dover had censored parts of his Introduction to the re-release of Maskelyne's Book of Magic. References to my research on Jasper Maskelyne were cut without Edwin Dawes' permission.

[magicam]

I'm still processing this sad news and the loss of an old and dear friend, but it feels like the end of an era.

My condolences to Eddie's sons, Michael and Adrian, and to the rest of the Dawes clan.

Below is information on the services to be held for Eddie.

EDDIE DAWES
A Service and Celebration of His Life. Monday, 3 April 2023

Our much-loved father Eddie Dawes sadly passed away on Friday March 3rd, 2023, aged 97. He was taken in to hospital two days before, suffering from a severe chest infection, leading to pneumonia. He died peacefully, with family around him.

The funeral will take place on Monday 3 April at 11.30 am at Haltemprice Crematorium, Willerby, HU10 6DS in the form of a celebration of Eddie’s long life. Following the service, everyone is invited to join the family for further reminiscences over a buffet lunch in the Canham Turner Building, at his long-time former workplace, the University of Hull, which is located about 15-minutes from the crematorium (use postcode HU6 7RX).

If you plan to join us that day, please advise us as soon as possible, preferably by e-mail to medawes@btinternet.com, but otherwise by telephone to 01482 657998, in order to facilitate seating / catering arrangements.

Should you be seeking overnight accommodation, the following hotels are within five minutes’ drive from the crematorium: Hull Mercure Grange Park Hotel; Lazaat Hotel, Cottingham; Innkeepers Lodge Hull Willerby. There are, of course, many other options just a little further away.

If you are not able to join us in person on the day, the crematorium service will be livestreamed on the internet (The UK is +5 hours ahead of EST), and will also be available a day or so later as a video you can watch at a convenient time. We will send further information about accessing this in due course.

Directions
The crematorium is signposted off the A164, north of Willerby, Hull. The slip road to follow is immediately south of the named Willerby Hill roundabout. It can only be accessed from the southbound side of the A164 dual-carriageway, so drivers approaching from the south need first to go completely around the roundabout. Sat nav postcode is HU10 6DS.

At the University, parking is available in the on-site Wilberforce multi-storey pay car park (£2 max charge, card only). This is most readily accessed via the University’s North entrance on Inglemire Lane, for which best to use sat nav postcode HU6 7RX, and then follow signage on site. See attached campus map to make your way to the Canham Turner Building. If you need mobility-impaired access, please contact us before the day to discuss.

Michael & Adrian Dawes

[Richard Stokes]

Edwin Dawes obituary, The Times, March 17, 2023
Magician whose greatest trick was to combine showbusiness with his day job as an eminent biochemistry professor

Eddie Dawes was one of the world’s leading chroniclers of the esoteric world of magic, writing numerous books on the subject as well as a remarkable 500 columns over 48 years for the Magic Circle’s monthly magazine, The Magic Circular.
He staged his own magic shows, lectured on the history of magic, amassed a vast collection of conjuring paraphernalia and filled his home with more than 7,000 books on “the magic arts” and their development over the centuries.
Yet his greatest trick was to combine all that with his demanding day job as an eminent biochemist at Hull University; he wrote extensively on that subject too, and led the development of one of the first biodegradable plastics.
Compartmentalisation was the key to his success. Except at lunchtimes, when Dawes would scour catalogues for books on magic in the university library run by his friend Philip Larkin, he would spend all day doing his academic work. Not until 10.15pm would he turn from microbes to magic, often staying up until 2am as he became, over the decades, a man who David Copperfield, the celebrated American illusionist, called “one of the great, if not the greatest, magic historians of my lifetime”.
Edwin Alfred Dawes was born in Goole, Yorkshire, in 1925. His father was a railway clerk who died of tuberculosis when Dawes was 14. Thereafter his mother went to work in the local food office. His introduction to magic came when he was five and recuperating from pneumonia. To entertain him, his father and grandfather taught him a few elementary magic tricks. Soon he was collecting vouchers from the front of porridge boxes to acquire The Quaker Oats Master Book of Magic. He started performing tricks at friends’ birthday parties and gave his first public magic show at the age of nine, but developed a new interest when he began attending Goole grammar school: chemistry. In a homemade laboratory in the garden shed, he “liberated” some chlorine gas to test his gas mask at the start of the Second World War. Happily, it worked.

In 1943 Dawes went to Leeds University where he secured a degree and a PhD in chemistry, and met his future wife, Amy, a domestic science student at the Yorkshire Training College of Housecraft. They married in 1950 and had two sons: Michael, who became a food industry executive, and Adrian, who became an investment manager and, for a while, a magician himself. Amy died in 2014.

In the same year that he married, Dawes moved to Glasgow University as a senior lecturer. While attending a conference in Edinburgh in 1951 he discovered a shop called the Scottish Magic Studio, whose owner introduced him to Abracadabra magazine and sold him a pile of back copies. “I bore them away to a seat in Princes Street Gardens, opened up their pages and simultaneously the gateway to an entirely new world,” he recalled. “The discovery there were others out there, of advertisements for dealers, descriptions of tricks, and news of the doings of other aficionados, was a revelation.”
He joined the Scottish Conjurors’ Association, then the International Brotherhood of Magicians, and later the elite Magic Circle, becoming its official historian and one of only ten members to be awarded its Gold Medal. His wife banned him from reading about biochemistry in bed, but she looked over his shoulder as he read magic books and became interested herself. They started performing their own stage show entitled Only Make-Believe. They subsequently developed a show called A Plethora of Prestidigitation using Victorian costumes and equipment for which they adopted the aliases Professor Bluffman and Madame Patrice.

In 1963 Dawes became the founding professor of the biochemistry department at Hull University, running it until 1986. There he led the development of the biodegradable plastic Biopol. ICI, then Britain’s largest chemical company, used it to make disposable carrier bags in the early 1970s until it reached the unfortunate conclusion that they would never catch on.
At various times Dawes served as Hull’s dean of science and pro-vice-chancellor. He wrote biochemistry textbooks and edited European scientific journals. But he continued, with his wife acting as typist and researcher, to write more than 20 books about magic and magicians, and to produce “A Rich Cabinet of Magical Curiosities”, his monthly column for The Magic Circular which ran from 1972 to 2020.
He also continued to collect magic books and paraphernalia until he had filled Dane Hill, his large home on Hull’s western fringe where he and his wife entertained fellow scientists and magicians. Another regular guest was Larkin, whom Dawes had got to know through his involvement with the university library. He took the poet to annual dinners of the Hull Magicians’ Circle, of which he was president for 57 years, and once persuaded Dale Salwak, the illustrious Californian magician, to stage a private show for Larkin at Dane Hill. Afterwards Larkin told Dawes that it was one of the most remarkable evenings of his life.
A decade after Larkin’s death Dawes helped to set up the Philip Larkin Society, which he chaired from 1995 until 2020. In that capacity he led an ultimately successful campaign to have Larkin commemorated in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

In 2018 Dawes appeared on a BBC Radio 4 programme entitled I Was Philip Larkin’s Magician. “There’s a relationship between chemistry and magic,” he contended. “From the earliest times scientific principles were being used in order to create magical effects. The priests of the ancient temples, the Greeks and Egyptians, used their superior knowledge of science to create effects such as the mysterious opening of temple doors in response to lighting fires on altars.” Like those ancient priests, Dawes never revealed the secrets of his tricks, or those of his fellow magicians, honouring the solemn vow taken by all members of The Magic Circle.

Edwin Dawes, biochemistry professor and magic historian, was born on July 6, 1925. He died on March 3, 2023, aged 97

[Zig Zagger]

What a great loss! But luckily his marvelous printed legacy will live on for a very long time.

In addition to that, both Wittus Witt and Marco Pusterla have quickly produced special tribute issues to Eddie Dawes, which can be downloaded as free PDFs:

from Wittus: https://www.magische-welt.com/Willkommen.html

from Marco: https://yeoldemagicmag.com/downloads/06 ... 40c05fcf8c