Elizabeth Wells Gallup

Elizabeth Wells Gallup (1848, Paris, New York – 1934) was an American educator and exponent of the Baconian theory of Shakespearian authorship.

Elizabeth Wells studied at Michigan State Normal College, the Sorbonne and the University of Marburg. She taught in Michigan for some twenty years and became a high school principal.

She was interested in the life and work of Francis Bacon and, together with her sister Kate Wells, initially worked on the theories of Dr Orville Ward Owen. She subsequently became convinced of the use of the bi-literal cipher in early Shapespeare printing to conceal messages concerning the authorship of the works and other statements about the secret history of the times.

Her work was largely sponsored by Colonel George Fabyan at his Riverside Laboratories in Geneva, Illinois. Fabyan, who had also funded Owen's work, supported a research staff working on her theory, which initially included the cryptographers William Friedman and Elizebeth Friedman.

The Friedmans later published a careful study of her theory showing that the range of type forms used in the printing of the works of Shakespeare conformed to the normal printing practices of the time.

References

* William and Elizebeth Friedman, "The Shakespearian ciphers examined", Cambridge University Press, 1957