A real-life story · Leeds, England, 1880

John Ogle’s deathbed vision: George Hanley

In 1880, John Ogle was dying in Leeds, in the north of England. An hour before he died, he said he could see one of his brothers, who had died many years earlier. Right after that, he said the name of an acquaintance, George Hanley, in surprise. According to his mother, George Hanley had died ten days earlier. No one had told John.

No. 21 in the ranking

The physicist William Barrett included this case in his book about what dying people see. It is one of the few cases in that book that can be partly checked. Today the civil register records the death of a George Hanley from the area where that acquaintance lived, before John’s death. We tell the story step by step and then look at what could be checked. If you only want the evidence, go straight to what can be checked.

Step 1

Summer 1880 · Told by his sister Harriet

John Ogle is dying in Leeds, and his mother arrives from the village where George Hanley lived

Illustration from John Ogle’s deathbed vision: George Hanley: “John Ogle is dying in Leeds, and his mother arrives from the village where George Hanley lived”

John Ogle was 35 and lived in Leeds, a city in the north of England. That summer he was dying. The account doesn’t say what from.

His family was with him. His sister Harriet was there, and so was a sister-in-law of Harriet’s. And his mother was there. She had come from Melbourne. This Melbourne is a village in Yorkshire, England, not the city in Australia. According to Harriet, it is about 40 miles from Leeds.

George Hanley lived in Melbourne. He was an acquaintance of John’s, but not a close friend.

Harriet, his sister, wrote it all down four years later.

Step 2

An hour before he died · Told by Harriet

John looks up and calls out to Joe, his dead brother

An hour before he died, John looked up with a fixed, interested gaze. He seemed to see someone. He said:

“Joe! Joe!”

John Ogle, according to the signed statement of his sister Harriet

Joe was another of John’s brothers. He had died about sixteen years earlier.

Right away, John said another name.

Step 3

Right after · Told by Harriet

John cries out George Hanley’s name in surprise

Immediately afterward, John exclaimed with great surprise:

“George Hanley!”

John Ogle, according to the signed statement of his sister Harriet

George Hanley wasn’t family. He was the acquaintance from Melbourne, the mother’s village.

His mother was the most surprised of all.

Step 4

At the bedside · Told by Harriet

His mother says George Hanley had died ten days earlier

His mother was astonished. Harriet wrote down what she said:

“How strange he should see George Hanley; he died only ten days ago.”

John’s mother, according to Harriet’s signed statement

Then the mother asked Harriet’s sister-in-law whether anybody had told John that George Hanley had died. The sister-in-law answered that no one had.

According to Harriet, the mother was the only person in the room who knew George Hanley had died.

John died soon afterward. Harriet was there, and four years later she signed a statement saying she had witnessed it all.

Step 5

From 1884 to 1926 · Told by William Barrett

Harriet signs her account in 1884, and the case ends up in a book

In 1884, Harriet lived in Manchester. There she wrote down and signed what she had seen. She gave it to the Reverend J. A. Macdonald. Macdonald collected cases for the Society for Psychical Research. It was a London society that studied apparitions, visions, and other things science couldn’t explain.

Later, the society asked Harriet a few questions. Harriet answered that John was neither delirious nor unconscious. She also said that George Hanley was an acquaintance, not a close friend. And she added that no one spoke of George Hanley’s death in John’s hearing.

The society published the case in its journal. In 1926, the physicist William Barrett copied it into his book Death-Bed Visions. On the page about William Barrett’s book, we explain what the book is like and what can be checked in its other accounts.

Harriet wrote that John died on July 17, 1879, a year earlier than the date we give here. The civil register lets us check it.

Step 6

Today · The civil register

The civil register records both deaths in 1880, George Hanley’s first

In England, every death is recorded in a civil register. Its indexes can be searched online today. They record deaths by quarter of the year.

John Atkin Ogle, aged 35, died in Leeds between July and September 1880. In 1879 there is no death of an adult John Ogle in Leeds. Harriet got the year wrong.
George Hanley, aged 69, died between April and June 1880 in the Pocklington district. Melbourne is one of the villages in that district.

So a George Hanley from the Melbourne area died before John. He is very probably John’s acquaintance. It isn’t completely certain, because the dates don’t fit well with the ten days the mother mentioned. We explain this further down.

The question remains: how could John name George Hanley, if no one had told him he had died?

What does the evidence say?

What can be checked

We ask every story the same five questions. They don’t tell us whether someone is telling the truth. They tell us what can be shown today. Here we ask them about what John Ogle said as he was dying. He said, in surprise, the name of George Hanley, an acquaintance who, according to his mother, had died ten days earlier. No one had told John.

3 of 5

Yes
Unconfirmed
No data

Did anyone write down at that very moment that John Ogle said George Hanley’s name?Only four years later. Harriet Ogle, John’s sister, was there, and she wrote it down and signed it in 1884. No one wrote it down at the time. When Harriet wrote it, it was already known that George Hanley had died. It is a witness’s signed memory, not a note made at the time.
Is it known when John Ogle said George Hanley’s name?It is known that it was an hour before he died, but the exact day isn’t certain. Harriet Ogle, John’s sister, wrote that John died on July 17, 1879. England’s civil register puts his death between July and September 1880. So Harriet got at least the year wrong.
Is it known whether George Hanley had already died when John Ogle said his name?Yes, the civil register records his death before John’s. England’s civil register puts the death of a George Hanley, aged 69, between April and June 1880, in the Melbourne area, the Yorkshire village where George Hanley lived. It puts John Ogle’s death between July and September of that year. He is very probably John’s acquaintance, but it isn’t certain.
Does anyone besides Harriet, John Ogle’s sister, confirm George Hanley’s death?A document confirms it, but no other person with a statement of their own. According to Harriet Ogle, John’s mother knew on her own that George Hanley had died, because she came from his village. We only know that from what Harriet says. The civil register index records the death of a George Hanley in that area in 1880.
Could John Ogle have learned in some other way that George Hanley had died?It is unlikely, according to his sister, but it can’t be ruled out. Harriet Ogle wrote that no one spoke of that death in John’s hearing and that only the mother knew George Hanley had died. But Harriet doesn’t say that anyone took care to hide the news, so John could have overheard something without anyone noticing. And the mother had just arrived from George Hanley’s village. It isn’t known whether, in the days before, she passed on news from there in the house.

Why we ask each question

What is hard to explain

John named, in surprise, an acquaintance who wasn’t family and who had just died. Harriet tells it.
According to Harriet, the mother was the only one who knew George Hanley had died, and no one spoke of it in John’s hearing.
Harriet’s sister-in-law said no one had told John.
The civil register records the death of a George Hanley from the Melbourne area before John’s death.

What remains unresolved

The whole account comes from one person, Harriet, who wrote it four years later. Neither the mother nor the sister-in-law wrote a statement of her own.
Harriet got the year wrong. So the day she gives, July 17, isn’t certain either.
The mother said George Hanley had died ten days earlier. The register puts his death between April and June, so June 30 at the latest. If John died on July 17, as Harriet says, George Hanley died at least 17 days before him, not ten. That is why it isn’t completely certain that the George Hanley in the register is the same man.
The mother had just arrived from Melbourne and knew George Hanley had died. There is no way to know whether, in the days before, she passed on news from the village in the house or at the bedside.
Some dying people also say they see people who are still alive. If dying people name many people, living or dead, getting it right now and then with someone who has just died could be chance. To know, someone would have to count how often a dying person names someone alive and how often someone who has just died. No one has done it.

Frequently asked questions

What is a “Peak in Darien” case?

It is when a dying person says they see someone they believed was alive. Later it turns out that person had already died. The name comes from The Peak in Darien, an 1882 book by the writer Frances Power Cobbe, who collected cases like this. The case of John Ogle and George Hanley is one of those William Barrett includes in his book. There is more about these cases on the page about Barrett’s book.

Is the Melbourne in John Ogle’s case the city in Australia?

No. It is Melbourne, a village in Yorkshire, in the north of England. George Hanley lived there, and John Ogle’s mother came from there when she arrived in Leeds.

Is John Ogle’s vision a near-death experience?

Not exactly. In a near-death experience, the person survives and tells afterward what they went through. John Ogle didn’t survive. He said what he was seeing out loud an hour before he died, and his sister Harriet told it.

Where this story comes from

Books

William Barrett, Death-Bed Visions (Methuen, London, 1926), chapter 2, pages 20 to 21, at the Wellcome CollectionRead for free

Case documents

The signed statement of Harriet H. Ogle, John’s sister, written in Manchester in 1884 and collected by the Reverend J. A. Macdonald. Published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, volume 5, page 460, and copied in Barrett’s book. The book spells the name “John Alkin Ogle”
Harriet H. Ogle’s answers to the society’s questions, in the same places
The death index of the civil registration of England and Wales: John Atkin Ogle, aged 35, Leeds, third quarter of 1880 (volume 9b, page 348), and George Hanley, aged 69, Pocklington, second quarter of 1880 (volume 9d, page 47), searched on FreeBMDSearch FreeBMD

Learn more

William Barrett’s book: what dying people see, with its 61 accountsRead
Doris’s deathbed vision, the other strong case in the same chapterRead
What is a near-death experience?Read

Our archive

Our reading of the case in the original book, our search for John Ogle and George Hanley in the death register, and its score on our five criteria, as of October 24, 2026

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