Arthur Koestler and his wife Cynthia died together in 1983; his 1 million pound estate paid for a parapsychology chair after four universities declined it

Arthur Koestler, diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1976 and leukaemia in 1980, wrote a suicide note dated June 1982. On 1 March 1983 he and his wife Cynthia, 55 and believed healthy, died of Tuinal and alcohol. Their bodies were found on 3 March. Cynthia's note said she could not live without him. Her death raised the question of whether he consented to or compelled it. His will left the residue, about 1 million pounds, to fund a British university chair in parapsychology, and 10,000 pounds to the Koestler Trust. Oxford, Cambridge, King's College London and University College London declined. Edinburgh accepted in February 1984 and set up the chair and unit, with Robert Morris first holder. In 1998 David Cesarani's biography said Koestler was a serial rapist, citing Jill Craigie, who said he raped her in 1951. Protesters had his bust removed from Edinburgh. Michael Scammell's 2009 biography replied that Craigie was the only woman on record and spoke more than 50 years later. Koestler could not answer, having died in 1983.