gave his permission for publication, but he refused payment on
the grounds that, if genuine, the images should not be "soiled" by
money.
Interestingly, Gardner and Doyle sought a second expert opinion
from the photographic company Kodak, who, after examining the
photographs, stated that the photographs "showed no signs of
being faked" and they concluded that "this could not be taken as
conclusive evidence ... that they were authentic photographs of
fairies". Kodak also declined to issue a certificate of authenticity.
The prints were also examined by another photographic
company, Ilford, who reported unequivocally that there was
"some evidence of faking".
The 1920 photographs
Doyle, who was preoccupied with
organising an imminent lecture
tour of Australia in July 1920,
sent Gardner to meet the Wright
family. Frances was by then living
with her parents in Scarborough,
but Elsie's father told Gardner
that he had been so certain the
photographs were fakes that
while the girls were away he
searched their bedroom and the
area around the stream, looking
for scraps of pictures or cut-outs,
but found nothing "incriminating".
The second of the five photographs,
showing Elsie with a winged gnome
Gardner, who believed the Wright family to be honest and
respectable and wanted to place the matter of the photographs'
authenticity beyond doubt, returned to Cottingley at the end of
July with two Kodak Cameo cameras and 24 secretly marked
photographic plates. These cameras were then given to the two
girls during their school summer holiday, to allow them to take
more photographs of the fairies.
18