Southcott, JOANNA

Southcott, JOANNA, a more than usually strange specimen of the religious visionary, was born in Devonshire, of humble parentage, about 1750. In youth a domestic servant at Exeter, she joined the Methodists, and learned the art of prophecy from one Sanderson. About 1792 she declared herself to be the woman driven into the wilderness of Rev. xii., and boldly gave forth predictions in prose and verse. She soon came to London on the invitation of Sharp the engraver, and here she published A Warning, &c. (1803), The Book of Wonders (1813-14), and Prophecies concerning the Birth of the Prince of Peace (1814). She also issued 6400 sealed papers to her followers, which she termed her seals, and which ensured salvation; their cost was from a guinea to twelve shillings. Strange to say, otherwise intelligent men believed in her. At length she imagined herself to be pregnant, and announced that she was to give birth, at midnight on the 19th October 1814, to a second Shiloh or Prince of Peace. Her followers received this announcement with devout reverence, and prepared an expensive cradle for the occasion. But she merely fell into a trance, and on 27th December 1814 she died. It was found that the appearance of pregnancy which had deceived others, and perhaps herself, was due to dropsy. Her followers continued to believe that she would rise again from her trance. In 1851 they still numbered over 200, with four places of worship, and were not quite extinct in 1897.