Who Was ‘The Deluded Follower of Joanna Southcott’? Millenarianism in Early Nineteenth-Century England

Bibliographic Data

ID10087481
AuthorsPhilip Lockley (University of Oxford, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume64
Issue1
Pages70-95
Publication date2013-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Ecclesiastical History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-0469 • E-ISSN: 1469-7637
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022046911002569
OpenAlexW2164596297
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited26

This article re-examines a controversial group in English religious history: the millenarian followers of the prophet Joanna Southcott. The identities of many of Southcott's supporters have remained unclear, despite notable academic attention. Their relative social dislocation is most disputed; greater consensus characterises debates over women's attraction to Southcottianism. This article uses a recently-opened archive of Southcottian material, and reinterprets previously-known sources, to revise all existing pictures of who Southcottians were. Southcottian occupations in industrial regions indicate a similar social makeup to contemporary Methodism; Southcottianism had no distinct appeal to women. New evidence of the personal experiences of Southcottians further suggests that they may be best understood as a branch of the ‘heart religion’ of the period, one taking a distinctive view of the ways and means of direct communication between the divine and human worlds

Aesthetics · Appeal · History of religions · Methodism · Millenarianism · Period (music · Political science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Gender, and Enlightenment · Religious studies

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