What s happened to Joanna Southcott s box

Joanna Southcott

Q. So who was she

A. I'm getting to that. She was either a madwoman or a prophetess, according to your beliefs. Joanna Southcott (or Southcote) was born in 1750 and died in 1814. She claimed to be a virgin and pregnant with the new messiah, called Shiloh. She retained a large fanatic following during the years she remained pregnant.

Q. Years

A. Yes. Her followers didn't seem to fazed by that unconventional gestation period. Doctors of the time diagnosed her condition as dropsy, the accumulation of fluid in the body.

Q. Biographical details please.

A. Joanna was born in East Devon, the daughter of a poor farmer. She had little education except for a constant study of the Bible, and became a domestic servant. In 1792, during a time of political upheaval in France and social and industrial change in England, Joanna began hearing a voice that prophesied a solution to the world's troubles with the imminent arrival of the Second Coming of Christ. The voices, as they increased, warned that man must turn to God because the end of the world was near, but they also offered explanations of scriptures and comments on historical and local events. Judgment day was in 2004, she was told.

Q. Was she accepted as a prophetess by the church

A. No way. She was forced to spread her prophecies in a book called The Strange Effects of Faith (1801), and went on to publish 65 others.

Q. But people must have thought she was a little, uh, touched

A. She often encountered ridicule but received adulation too. It was estimated she had 100,000 followers from all walks of life. In 1814, at the age of 64, she claimed to have been intimate with the Holy Ghost, and pregnant with the next messiah. She died, without giving birth.

Q. But the following all died out when she perished

A. Wrong. The Southcottian movement continued. As it does now. She left a sealed box of prophesies with the instruction that it could be opened only in the presence of 24 bishops and (by some accounts) 24 virgins dressed in white.

Q. Not very likely, is it

A. Hardly. Where are you going to get 24 white dresses The box, by some reports, is in the possession of the Panacea Society of Bedford, England, a successor group of followers.

Q. So what's this about the newspaper ad

A. It appeared frequently in national newspapers of the 1960s and 70s, certainly the Sunday Express. It was trying to get these 24 bishops together to open it. The 24 bishops weren't keen.

Q. Can I see the box

A. Not sure where it is. The Southcottians say that the box is in safekeeping, but its whereabouts will be known only when the bishops agree to a gathering.

Q. Shouldn't they be hurrying up Judgment day is nigh.

A. According to recent correspondence in a national newspaper, the box was actually in the custody of a Yorkshire family called Jowett through five generations. Val Lewis, who has written a book called Satan's Mistress, about Southcott, said the box was eventually handed over to Annie Stitt, head of the Southcottian Society, and in 1966 she put it for safekeeping in the British Museum. Then, it is claimed, the museum opened the box and selected papers they felt were of interest. These are now kept in the museum library. The box and the rest of the contents were stored in the museum basements and museum officials have apparently lost track of it.

Q. So the end was nigh for the followers

A. Think again. The aforementioned Panacea Society in Bedford is a breakaway group formed in 1920, regarded with suspicion by Southcottians.

Q. So, what's their current belief

A. It's worth waiting for. They now believe Shiloh has returned and is occupying the body of Prince William.

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By Steve Cunningham