Barltrop, Mabel

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A panacea in Bedford Mabel Barltrop. First published in the History in Bedfordshire, Volume 5, No 12, Spring 2012, the newsletter of the Bedfordshire Local History Association

Mabel Barltrop in the 1920s when she formally became known as Octavia. By kind permission of The Panacea Society Two Victorian villas in Albany Road, Bedford, separated by just three front doors, are ready for great events: one is waiting for the Second Coming, and the other for the return of the female Messiah, Octavia. The villas belong to the Panacea Society, a religious group based in Bedford, founded by Mabel Barltrop, at 12 Albany Road. In 1918 she was the 53-year-old widow of a vicar. Their headquarters is 'The Haven', a Victorian mansion near what is left of Bedford Castle and the end-terrace house in Albany Road (called 'The Ark') is a residence for The Messiah after the Second Coming.

The teachings of the Devonshire prophetess Joanna Southcott (1750ï¿½1814)1 inspired the group and Mabel Barltrop, believing she was Southcott's child and the Shiloh of Southcott's prophecies, took the name Octavia. The Society (then known as the Community of the Holy Ghost) began with 12 apostles.

Their main aim was to persuade 24 Anglican bishops to open Southcott's Box of Sealed Writings and advertisements were placed in national news-papers from time to time. They claim that the box is hidden in England, but others say it was opened in 1927 and found to contain, among other things, a broken horse pistol and a lottery ticket.(2)

In the 1930s there were said to be 70 members in the Bedford community and, in 1967, the Bedfordshire Times reported about 30 members. But there is a worldwide membership and the group maintains a healing ministry which started in 1923 and was made publicly available in 1924.

At Mabel's death, in 1934, there were 2,000 members, many living in and around Albany Road. Their homes backed on to a communal area, which they believed to be the original site of the Garden of Eden. Water and linen squares that Barltrop had breathed on, which were posted to them, were believed by 75,000 worldwide followers to contain miraculous healing powers.

A new book, Octavia, Daughter of God, by Jane Shaw 3 tells the Society's story. Like many others, it grew quickly for a short time but the death and non-return of its Messiah led to its decline. There are still some surviving Panaceans hoping for Octavia's return, with God, her father.

Mabel Barltrop would give her flock 'the daily script' every evening prescribing the divine and ordinary revelations from her 'father', which she had written down, and other rules, from herself, on how life should be lived in the neighbouring properties. She was in command and was petty and snobbish.

Was Mabel Barltrop a fraudster or deluded? Jane Shaw feels that she was convinced by her own 'visitation' from God, as were her disciples. But Mabel did spend time in asylums following her husband's premature death and was diagnosed with melancholia. She felt that she was responsible for all the world's suffering and making up for that resulted in her spiritual and real journey in the three years between discharge from asylums and becoming Octavia, the female Messiah.

Mabel's links with the Southcottians, were essential. Southcott, a Devon farmer's daughter, during her lifetime attracted a large following in London but lost credibility when aged 64, in 1814, she announced she was pregnant with Shiloh, the new Messiah foretold in Genesis, but then died without giving birth. A few of Southcott's followers continued to believe, circulating her writings ï¿½ arguing that Shiloh would come only when the world was in crisis. The First World War was such a time, and interest in Southcott's prophecies revived. Messiahs come at difficult times and, with the slaughter in the trenches, Mabel convinced herself that she could save the world.

Many Southcottians, war widows and suffragettes supported Mabel. For the suffragettes a female Messiah was very useful as she could be used to discredit the male establishment of the Church. A small number of men were in the Society, but the hierarchy was completely female.

It is now a small but wealthy Society, owning land and properties in London, Bedford and other places. It was reported to the Charity Commission in 2004 that net assets were around ï¿½20m. In 2002 they were ordered by the Charity Commission to auction many of their assets or risk losing tax benefits as a charity.4

Notes

1.1750-1814, was an English religious visionary. Uneducated, possibly illiterate, she spent her early years in domestic service. About.1792 she claimed the gift of prophecy and her 'revelations' attracted many followers. Later she announced that, as the woman in Revelation 12, she would be the mother of the coming Messiah. Soon after the time set for the birth of the 'second Shiloh', she died of brain disease, aged 64. Her followers continued to study the 60 or more tracts and books she had written and the sect never completely died out. She left a locked box instructing that it be opened only in the presence of all the bishops at a time of national crisis (see note 2, below).

2. The opening of the box took place before a large audience at the Hoare Memorial Hall, Church House, Westminster, London, on 11 July 1927. Only the Bishop of Grantham was there, but the Bishop of Crediton was represented by his son, the Reverend Trefusis. Among the 56 objects in the box, the pamphlets and books included: The Surprises of Love, Exemplified in the Romance of a Day . . . (1765), with annotations; Rider's British Merlin (1715); Calendier de la Cour (1773); and Ovid's Metamorphoses (1794). There was a paper souvenir 'printed on the River Thames, Feb. 3rd, 1814', and a lottery ticket for 1796. Among the objects were a fob purse (containing silver and copper coins and tokens), a horse pistol, a miniature case, an ivory dice cup, a bone puzzle, a woman's embroidered nightcap and a set of brass money weights. The Southcottians did not accept that these 'pathetic souvenirs' were the contents of the right box, and the appeals to bishops to attend the opening of the true box continued, although it was not clear where the box was. The story of Joanna Southcott and her prophecies has continued over two centuries and is still not completely dead. Southcott published 65 books and pamphlets, and her followers added many additional items.

3. Octavia, Daughter of God: The Story of a Female Messiah and her Followers, by Jane Shaw (Jonathan Cape, 2011): 398pp, Â£18.99).

With acknowledgements to newspapers and TV on the publication of Jane Shaw's book and the internet for background material.

Page last updated: 22nd January 2014