Magic Circle looks for female member it made disappear

The council meeting of the Magic Circle on 9 October 1991 was a historic occasion, marking the moment when the first cohort of women, including Debbie McGee and Fay Presto, were admitted to its previously male-only ranks of magicians.

- Jessica Murray

But the meeting was also notable for another reason. The council voted to expel a member named Raymond Lloyd, who was in fact a woman - real name Sophie Lloyd - who had been "masquerading as a male" in order to gain access to the society.

She had been admitted 18 months earlier after wearing a disguise, and decided to reveal herself when the organisation voted to admit women in 1991. Despite the new policy, Lloyd was rapidly expelled by members angry at her "deliberate deception," the meeting notes state.

Now the Magic Circle is trying to track Lloyd down to apologise for what happened to her and admit her back into the society. Perhaps characteristically, after tricking the world's most famous society of magicians, she now appears to have disappeared.

"It's almost as if they just made her vanish from thin air, tried to brush it under the carpet, but obviously now the story has come out and we're so desperate to right this wrong," said Laura London, the first female chair of the Magic Circle.