Benjamin Fish Austin
Benjamin Fish Austin (September 10, 1850 – January 22, 1933) was a nineteenth-century Canadian educator, Methodist minister, and spiritualist. He served as the principal of Alma College girls' school from 1881 to 1897 during which time that institution was regarded as one of the most prestigious centres of female education in Canada. Austin served the Methodist Church for many years as an educator and minister but was expelled from that organisation in 1899 for being a proponent of the Spiritualist movement. He went on to become a renowned spiritualist in Canada and the United States, publishing many books and editing the Rochester and later Los Angeles-based spiritualist magazine Reason. Early life and education Austin was born in Brighton, Ontario, the son of another Benjamin Fish Austin and Mary Anne F. McGuire. He was described as a Canadian of mixed English and Irish ethnicity. Benjamin was raised a Methodist, the fourth generation of his family to belong to that church. He attended the local grammar school and worked as a teacher from the age of 16 to 20. At the age of 20, Austin began preaching locally and became more involved with the church, eventually attending Albert College in nearby Belleville,