Jeff Espley

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Jeff Espley was a UK fan from Liverpool active in the 1950s. He was the founder of the Liverpool Group (LāSFāS), as Eric Bentcliffe explained in Waldo #1 (April 1959):

Towards the end of 1951 a Liverpool fan by the name of Jeff Espley had the idea of asking the Milcross Book Service (which at that time was being run by old time fen Frank Milnes and Les Johnstone) for the addresses of other s-f readers in the city. On Monday the 12th of November, 1951, LaSFaS held its first meeting.

Espley was elected secretary of the club.

In the same issue of Waldo, Bentcliffe notes some group members who '... have fallen by the wayside'. He said of Espley:

Founder of the Group JEFF ESPLEY, was a person with a sort of leapfrog-enthusiasm – soon after the SPACE DIVE [club room] was rented for the club Jeff got interested in Spiritualism. And then there was one, less.

A slightly different version of Espley's departure is recounted in Then. In July 1953 the Liverpool group were forced to move to new premises:

The group named their new meeting room 'Vat 69a' and took the opportunity afforded by the move to rid themselves of founder member Jeff Espley, whose claim to have psychic powers they found irritating, by not telling him where they had moved to. 

Bentcliffe later said in a letter to Rob Hansen, also quoted in Then:

... his powers couldn't have been all that great as it was a move of only several streets and he never found the new place!

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