Doctor Frederick Bartlett

Doctor Frederick Bartlett will be best remembered as an eminent research psychologist. He attained a first class degree in Moral Sciences in 1914 at the age of 28.

In the same year as his graduation and appointment as an Assistant in Experimental Psychology, war broke out and all of his seniors in Cambridge left for war service. Bartlett was ineligible for service due to a heart condition (despite trying to enlist on three occasions), and so he was appointed temporary Director of the department. This resulted in the unheard of occurrence of his almost immediately promotion from undergraduate student status to acting head of Psychology at Cambridge.

Two years ago he left Cambridge to work for the Tavistock Clinic in London.

• Captain George Withers, soldier and stalwart companion whom he met in the aftermath of the Great War.
• William Tyrell, Permanent Under-Secretary (Foreign Office), met him during Bartlett's South Africa trip 1923-24. Their wives get on rather well.
• Laurens van der Post, a young Afrikaaner gentleman, journalist, humanitarian and explorer whom Frederick took a liking to during his own journeys to the Cape. Frederick and Emily attended van der Post's wedding in Dorset on March the 8th, 1928. Laurens and his wife have been living in England ever since and the Afrikaaner visits London on a regular basis, always stopping by to entertain the Bartlett's with his stories and ideas.

As reader and former director of the Cambridge laboratory, Bartlett has some research staff at his disposal and many contacts (both present & former) working in medicine and academia. He also has access to the not inconsiderable resources of the Tavistock Clinic.

Bartlett was unfortunate enough to be severely injured and then mortally wounded during the party's investigations into The King in Yellow:

• On December 10th 1928, at Mullardoch House, Loch Mullardoch, Scotland, Bartlett lost his right eye and much of the right side of his face in a fight with the creature that used to be Montague Edwards. After this incident he wore a partial mask to cover the damage.
• Doctor Bartlett was killed by a Byakhee in the Milan studio of Thomas Villiers on December 21st 1929. He was interred at Wimbledon Cemetery on December 31st the same year. He was 43 years old.

Parents dead. No siblings. No children. Married Emily Mary (nee Smith) in 1920 (met her during a research project). She remained in the couple's Wimbledon home after Frederick's death.

Has (he believes) the largest swallow-tail butterfly collection in England.

It seems that whatever secrets Barlett possessed have gone with him to his grave.