Rosina Mary Showers
1857-?

          materialisation medium, daughter of General Showers of the Bombay Army. As a child she conversed with invisible people, sat for the first time in the circle of her family in the Spring of 1872, produced raps, movements without contact, obtained poltergeist manifestations in daylight, independent writing and saw spirit forms among which John King and Peter rose into prominence. In 1874 Miss Showers and her mother came from Teignmouth to London to give séances to representative spiritualists. The test conditions in these early séances were taken charge of by the spirits. At the beginning of the séance coils of rope or tape would be placed in the cabinet. At a signal the curtain of the cabinet was drawn aside and the medium was discovered tightly bound. The usual materialised spirit form was a girl, Florence, who was eight inches taller than the medium, could vary her height and was often seen by Mrs. Ross Church (Florence Marryat) together with the medium. The story of the authoress' experiences is told in There is No Death.

Florence Marryat found herself so much in rapport with Miss Showers that she wrote:

"We could not sit next each other at an ordinary tea or supper table when we had no thought of, or desire to hold a séance, without manifestations occurring in the full light. A hand that did not belong to either of us would make itself apparent under the table-cloth between us - a hand with power to grasp ours - or our feet would be squeezed or kicked beneath the table, or fingers would suddenly appear and whisk the food off our plates."

An attempt at her exposure was made on April 2, 1894, at the house of Serjeant Cox. When Florence appeared between the curtains of the cabinet Serjeant Cox's daughter, Mrs. Edwards, opened the curtains wider. The spirit resisted, in the struggle the headdress fell off and revealed Miss Showers. Serjeant Cox was satisfied that the medium was entranced and had unconsciously impersonated the spirit.

Source (with minor modifications): An Encyclopaedia of Psychic Science by Nandor Fodor (1934).