Harold Dearden

Harold Dearden (13 December 1882 – 6 July 1962) was a British psychiatrist and screenwriter.

Biography Dearden was born in Bolton, Lancashire. He was educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and London Hospital. He qualified as a physician in 1911.

During World War I, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was a medical officer for the 3rd Battalion of the Grenadier Guards. In 1916, he became honorary Captain. At the Battle of the Somme he was wounded, suffering from a lost eye and shell shock. He was later invalided out of the war.

During World War II, Dearden worked as a psychiatrist and was principal interrogator at Camp 020.

In 1927, he wrote an article How Spiritualists are Deluded. Dearden attended séances and was a judge for a group formed by the Sunday Chronicle to investigate the materialization medium Harold Evans. During a séance Evans was exposed as a fraud. He was caught masquerading as a spirit, in a white nightshirt.

Publications Insanity: Prevention or Cure? (1922) The Moral Imbecile (1922) The Technique of Living (1924) The Doctor Looks at Life (1924) The Science of Happiness (1925) Exercise and the Will: With a Chapter on Obesity (1927) How Spiritualists are Deluded (1927) Medicine and Duty: The First World War Diary of Dr Harold Dearden (1928, 2014) Two White Arms: A Comedy-Farce in Three Acts (1928) The Mind of the Murderer (1930) Such Women are Dangerous (1933) The Fire Raisers: The Story of Leopold Harris and His Gang (1934) A Confessor of Women (1934) Queer People (1935) Devilish But True: The Doctor Looks at Spiritualism (1936) The Wind of Circumstance (1938) Time and Chance (1940) Creation's Heir (1947) Some Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury and Others: Death Under the Microscope (1948)