Who first used the term 'ley line'? (history question)

[Grahame]

I don't think we can take Dr. Clarke's reference to ley lines as accurate historical reportage, as his blog post was written in 2015. It seems likely that he is using the term in a modern context. Without a transcript of Cleary-Baker's address, we'll have to leave that one aside for the moment.

I did manage to find a couple of newspaper articles about the meeting that clearly refer to Clearly-Baker's speech, although neither of them mentions leys in any context:

http://ufo-warminster.co.uk/clippings/t ... ing_65.pdf

http://ufo-warminster.co.uk/clippings/c ... tement.pdf

Of course, it's possible that any mention of ley lines was omitted from the newspaper reports - perhaps they thought that one weird topic was enough to cover without mentioning ley lines - but surely they would have mentioned possible terrestrial connections if they had been discussed?

There is a tantalising quote from Arthur Shuttlewood's book The Warminster Mystery here:

Some evidence that Shuttlewood was outside of the ufological mainstream before his own sighting is given, perhaps, in The Warminster Mystery, where he asks, 'Have you heard of "leys" or "orthoteny"? I had not until Gavin Gibbons, an author, came to see me on 29th October, 1965.'

Leys, but alas, no lines.

[Grahame]

Back to Tony Wedd... I've just found a video of a talk about his 1961 booklet Skyways and Landmarks that he presented to the BUFORA conference in 1968, where he uses the dreaded 'ley lines' term (@ 6m45s). Jimmy Goddard says that he attended Tony's first talk on this in 1962, shortly after he published his booklet, so it's possible that it dates back to then.

Now this connection between the flying saucer routes and the old ley lines of Alfred Watkins...

So it looks like Tony is our culprit. I've managed to find a copy of Skyways and Landmarks online, but there isn't any mention of leys, never mind ley lines in it.



(OT) I also found this interesting memoir of Tony written by his son, where he reveals that, despite believing that brushing your teeth and washing your clothes were bad for you, he still managed to conduct a series of affairs with sophisticated women!