Hall had a boundless respect for Cambridge, expressed in his own fantasy that he was a Cambridge graduate himself, which he wasn't. (p. 3) . . . Dr. Eric J. Dingwall, an academic in charge of the restricted collection (dirty books) at the British Library who rejoinced in the nickname 'Dirty Ding,'. . . .Trevor Hall was the most determined [of the three authors](54). . . .The late Trevor Hall is the principal example of [researchers who are] too vicious in their assessment of [Marianne]. . . .[he] would countenance no good of her(66). . . .None of this will do. It is another example of psychical researchers, who are forever crying out for open-mindedness, doctoring the facts to suit their theories - or rather their prejudices - for they rarely, if ever, have theories worthy of the name.(67)
(Robert Wood, Widow of Borley, 1992.)
After Price's death Dingwall and Hall, with their usual propensity for making wild and derogatory assertions about the motives and acitivies of deceased psychical researchers. . . .
(John L. Randall, correspondence, January 2002 Journal of the Society for Psychical Research,)
. . . to castigate Price over details that he left out is in itself misleading(p. 73). . . .Trevor Hall's attempted demolition of Price's reputation is itself a doubtful exercise(101). . . . T.H. Hall was for a time a Perrot student at Cambridge but there have been doubts expressed as to his true academic background. Among other qualifications he applied for a Litt D from Leeds University, but was turned down. . . .[I] did write to Hall, giving him a chance to defend his views, but his reply showed him more interested in the fact that he couldn't find my name in Who's Who, and promoting his book.(207) . . . .He gained a remarkable record of research achievements yet, at the same time, apparently had an unusual lack of ethics. (211)
(Ivan Banks, The Enigma of Borley Rectory, 1996.)
I have never met anyone who had a good word to say for [Trevor Hall]. . . . I stayed several times with Hall at his house in Selby, York. I soon realized he was a man who would stop at absolutely nothing to get his own way. [He] is unreliable as a researcher and his savage attack on Harry Price is full of errors of fact and errors of judgement. He even claimed to be an M.A. of Cambridge, which he never was. . . .I can assure you that [Hall] behaved far worse than Marianne. Hall made himself an expert in what American's call "trash biography." That is to say, you throw all the mud you can find and then hope that some of it will stick. Hall was a bad researcher, always twisting facts to suit his theories. His savage attack on Price called Search for Harry Price, should really be called The Hounding of Harry Price. It is full of venomous half-truths an insinuations. The critics saw through it. One said, "The author leaves no stone unturned that might reveal a dirty secret." In brief, it is the case for the prosecution presented with all the skill and cunning of a devious and crooked attorney. . . .He was very good at obtaining facts, or rather getting other people to obtain facts for him, but his inferences were nearly always totally wrong. . . . Hall always tried to draw conclusions which would be damaging to the character of the person involved. In short, he was the greatest mud-slinger of all time. . . .I don't know why [he] behaved so badly. He was a supreme egotist, inflated to the breaking point with self-importance and a determination to get his name and exploits at all costs before the public. An American collector of conjuring books summed him up in 1993 saying, "Trevor Hall had two reputations: one as a scholar, the other as a scoundrel." Hall never met Marianne nor Price. He attacked them out of vicious malice hoping to further his own glory. As soon as they found out his real nature, his friends left him at once and he died a lonely and unhappy old man.
(Alan Wesencraft to Vincent O'Neil, 2000)
. . . .Hall continued his attacks, not only againts Price, but against several other eminent psychical researchers of the past, eventually falling out with Eric Dingwall and Mollie Goldney, both of whom came to regret that they had ever had anything to do with him. His last attempt to blacken the character of Harry Price came in 1978 when his book Search for Harry Price was published by Duckworth's. I think that this book should find an honoured place in the Guiness Book of Records under the title of "The Most Spiteful Book Ever Written!" . . . . I had done enough research to convince myself that Trevor Hall was unreliable. . . . [The Harry Price family] still felt some bitterness about the way in which Harry's reputation had been systematically demolished after his death, and they were particularly angry about the lies put around by Trevor Hall.
(John L. Randall talk to The Ghost Club, 7 March 2000)
It is very interesting to note that Hall has been described to me by Iris Owen as a "strange man, obsessed, and unbending and rigid in his views. He made up his mind early on that all of parapsychology was a fraud and a cheat, and all of his writings are destructive and vindictive. He saw himself as somewhat of a crusader against parapsychology." This opinion of Hall came from someone who not only worked closely with him, but who had meals with him on many occasions.
In a letter written in about 1968 to someone identified only as 'John,' Mrs. C. C. Baines recalled that before the publication of The Haunting of Borley Rectory in 1956, Trevor Hall asked her to "trace Marianne Foyster, on the grounds that she had done a bunk via Dublin to the USA to marry a G.I. and left several children - inference being they were illegitimate - in the care of the Suffolk County Council." Baines explains, "I was so angry I never answered that letter which in any case was a bit of utter nonsense, and a very stupid attempt to deceive me, quite apart from anything else. First, the Suffolk County Council would have had no jurisdiction over Mrs. Foyster - or whoever she became - in the USA for most certainly no one would have found it worth their while to apply for an extradition order IF THERE HAD BEEN ANY CRIMINAL OFFENCE which would have had to be proved. Second, the Suffolk County Council with all its resources and legal powers did not need the offices of any outsiders and amateur enquiry agents to do their own work in this respect." (Emphasis original.) Baines continues, "Only recently did I learn from Dr. Gauld that Hall is willing to show anyone and everyone with pride four or five typescript bound volumes of these researches [into Marianne] WHICH HAD NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH PSYCHICAL RESEARCH OR BORLEY BUT WERE THE VILEST FORM OF DIRT-DIGGING POSSIBLE." She indicates that Mrs. Goldney went to see Dom Richard Whitehouse "immediately after the publication of HBR evidently disclaiming her part, and fearing an action for libel, which Dom Richard told me his abbot had considered, but wiser reflection prevailed." The letter goes on to tells how she will resign from the S.P.R. if Hall joins, and will encourage others to do the same. In her opinion, "All this was a typical Trevor Hall 'smear' - and this has become his speciality. But I am now attacking him hard and strong as (a) a lazy, superficial, and arrogant so-called researcher who even cannot give facts. . . . (b) as a far greater suppressor of facts, or able to have slanted them to suit HIS THESIS, than Price, attacked on those grounds, ever was. In fact, highly dishonest intellectually - ergo most limited intellectually - and as a person, an absolute horror."
The Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology reports that in one of his books Hall "demolishes the character and achievements" of one psychical researcher. He "denigrates the character and work of . . . Harry Price" in another volume. In yet another work he attempted to "destroy the reputation of [William] Crookes." The Encyclopedia concludes, "his consistent attempt to demolish the reputations of famous workers in psychical research is perhaps too consistently destructive and one-sided."
(Chapter 9, The Most Haunted Woman in England by Vincent O'Neil)