Joanna Southcott

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Joanna Southcott[1]
BornApril 1750
Taleford, Devon, England
Died26 December 1814(1814-12-26) (aged 64)
London, England
Occupationreligious prophet

Joanna Southcott (or Southcote; April 1750 – 26 December 1814) was a self-described religious

prophetess from Devon, England. A "Southcottian" movement continued in various forms after her death; its eighth prophet, Mabel Barltrop
, died in 1934.

Early life

Joanna Southcott was born in the hamlet of Taleford, Devonshire, baptised at Ottery St Mary, and raised in the village of Gittisham. Her father, William Southcott (died 1802), ran a small farm. She did dairy work as a girl, and after the death of her mother, Hannah, she went into service, first as a shop-girl in Honiton, then for a considerable time as a domestic servant in Exeter. She was eventually dismissed because a footman whose attentions she rejected claimed that she was "growing mad".[2]

Self-revelation

Originally in the Church of England, she joined the Wesleyans in Exeter in about 1792.[3] She became persuaded that she had supernatural gifts and wrote and dictated prophecies in rhyme. She then announced herself as the Woman of the Apocalypse, spoken of in a prophetic passage of the Revelation (12:1–6).[when?]

Southcott came to London at the request of William Sharp, an engraver, and began selling paper "seals of the Lord" at prices varying from twelve shillings to a guinea.[4][5] The seals were supposed to ensure a holder's place among the 144,000 people ostensibly elected to eternal life.

The new Messiah and death

At the age of 64, Southcott claimed she was pregnant with the new

Shiloh of Genesis (49:10). 19 October 1814 was the planned delivery date, but Shiloh failed to appear, and it was given out that she was in a trance. Southcott had a disorder that made her appear pregnant and this fuelled her followers, who numbered about 100,000 by 1814, mainly in the London area.[6]

Southcott died not long after this. Her official date of death was given as 27 December 1814, but it is likely that she died the previous day, as her followers retained her body for some time in the belief that she would be raised from the dead. They agreed to her burial only after the corpse began to decay. She was buried at the Chapel of Ease at St John's Wood in January 1815.[7]

Legacy

The "Southcottian" movement did not end with her death in 1814, although her followers had declined greatly in number by the end of that century. In 1844 one Ann Essam left large sums of money for "printing, publishing and propagation of the sacred writings of Joanna Southcott".[8][9] The will was disputed in 1861 by her niece on grounds that the writings were blasphemous and the bequest was contrary to the Statutes of Mortmain: the Court of Chancery refused to find the writings blasphemous but voided the bequest, acknowledging that it broke the Statutes of Mortmain.[10][11]

In 1881 there was an enclave of her followers living in the Chatham area, east of London, who were distinguished by their long beards and good manners.[12]

Joanna Southcott's Box in The Panacea Museum in Bedford

Southcott left a sealed wooden casket of prophecies, usually known as Joanna Southcott's Box, with instructions to open it only at a time of national crisis and in the presence of all 24 current bishops of the

First World War. In 1927, the psychic researcher Harry Price claimed to have come into possession of the box and arranged to have it opened in the presence of one reluctant prelate, the suffragan Bishop of Grantham. It was found to contain only a few oddments and unimportant papers, among them a lottery ticket and a horse-pistol. Price's claims to have had the true box were disputed by historians and by Southcott followers.[13]

1932 "Crime and Banditry, Distress and Perplexity will increase in England until the Bishops Open Joanna Southcott's Box". A poster placed in Piccadilly Circus by Mabel Barltrop's Panacea Society in June and July 1932

Southcottians who denied the authenticity of the box that was opened in 1927 continued to press for the true box to be opened.

Day of Judgement would come in the year 2004, and her followers stated that if the contents of the box had not been studied beforehand, the world would have had to meet it unprepared.[citation needed
]

Charles Dickens refers to Southcott in a description of the year 1775 at the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities.[15]

Her religious teaching is still practised today by two groups: the Christian Israelite Church and the House of David.

Works

Among her 60 publications may be mentioned:

  • The Strange Effects of Faith. London: E. J. Field. 1802.
  • The True Explanation of the Bible. London: S. Rousseau. 1804.
  • The Book of Wonders (1813–1814)
  • Prophecies announcing the birth of the Prince of Peace, extracted from the works of Joanna Southcott to which are added a few remarks thereon, made by herself, ed. Ann Underwood. London: 1814
  • Joanna Southcott: A dispute between the woman and the powers of darkness (1802) New York; Woodstock: Poole 1995.
    ISBN 1-85477-194-9
    . Facsimile

See also

  • John Ward (1781–1837), a self-styled prophet who claimed to be Southcott's successor
  • Alice Seymour – another 20th-century follower of Southcott

Notes

  1. ^ Portrait drawn and engraved by William Sharp, 1812.
  2. ^ Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, vol. 53, p. 277.
  3. ^ Women Writers IV. Novelists, Essayists and Poets – R–Z (London: Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers, Summer 2012).
  4. ^ Denham, G (1815). "Remarks on the Writings and Prophecies of Joanna Southcott: being an attempt to prove her assertions inconsistent with the will of God as revealed in the scriptures of eternal truth". Dean&Munday. p. 23. Retrieved 16 December 2015.
  5. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Southcott, Joanna" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 506. Coming to London at the request of William Sharp (1749–1824), the engraver, she began to "seal" the 144,000 elect at a charge varying from twelve shillings to a guinea.
  6. ^ Robert Chamber's Book of Days, vol. 2, p. 775.
  7. ^ Robert Chamber's Book of Days, vol. 2, p. 775.
  8. ^ Austin Wakeman Scott (1966). Select cases and other authorities on the law of trusts. Law school casebook series (5th ed.). Little, Brown. p. 682.
  9. ^ Frank Swancara (1971). Obstruction of justice by religion: a treatise on religious barbarities of the common law, and a review of judicial oppressions of the non-religious in the United States. Civil liberties in American history. Da Capo Press. p. 171.
  10. ^ Thornton v. Howe, 54 Eng. Rep. 1042 (Ch. 1862).
  11. ^ Charles Beavan, ed. (1863). Report of cases in Chancery: argued and determined in the Rolls court during the time of the Rt Hon. John Romilly, Kt, Master of the rolls, Volume XXXI, 1862. Saunders and Benning. p. 14.
  12. ^ Robert Chambers, Book of Days, vol 2, p. 776.
  13. ISBN 0-7156-1143-7
    .
  14. ^ "Religion: Servant Woman's Box". Time Magazine. 8 May 1939. Archived from the original on 14 December 2008.
  15. ^ Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. She had recently reached her "five-and-twentieth blessed birthday", of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements had been made to swallow up London and Westminster.

References

External links

American Cyclopædia article about Joanna Southcott
.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Joanna Southcott.
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