The Southcott surname is first recorded by Michael Southcote in the 14th century, and later recorded by Nicholas Southcott Jr of Bodmin, Cornwall in the 15th century. He was made Clerk of the Peace for Devon. His grandson, John Southcott, was owner and Lord of Bovey Tracey.
Joanna Southcott was a religious prophetess. She was born in the hamlet of Taleford, baptised at Ottery St Mary, and raised in the village of Gittisham, all in Devon, England. At the age of 64 Southcott affirmed that she was pregnant and would be delivered of the new Messiah, the Shiloh of Genesis. The date of 19 October 1814 was that fixed for the birth, but Shiloh failed to appear, and it was given out that she was in a trance. She died not long after.
The "Southcottian" movement did not end with her death in 1814. Her followers are said to have numbered over 100,000, but had declined greatly by the end of the 19th century. In 1844 a lady named Ann Essam left large sums of money for "printing, publishing and propagation of the sacred writings of Joanna Southcott". Southcott left a sealed wooden box of prophecies, usually known as Joanna Southcott's Box, with the instruction that it be opened only at a time of national crisis, and then only in the presence of all 24 bishops of the Church of England, who were to spend a fixed period of time beforehand studying Southcott's prophecies. Attempts were made to persuade the episcopate to open it during the Crimean War and again during the First World War. The box was supposedly opened in 1927, however Southcottians claimed that the box opened in 1927 was not the authentic one and continued to press for the true box to be opened. An advertising campaign on billboards and in British national newspapers such as the Sunday Express was run in the 1960s and 1970s by one prominent group of Southcottians, the Panacea Society in Bedford, to try to persuade the twenty-four bishops to have the box opened. The current state of the box is unknown. Southcott prophesied that the 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.
Ernest Southcott
The Very RevErnest William Southcott was an eminent Anglican priest and author in the 20th century. He was Vicar of St Wilfrid's, Halton, Leeds, where he pioneered the House Church movement, and then Rural Dean of Whitkirk until 1961 when he was appointed Provost of Southwark Cathedral. He resigned Southwark in 1970 and became Vicar of Rishton in Lancashire. He died on 17 January 1976. Southcott was notable for his height- six feet six inches- and his conducting of services in parishioners' houses, celebrating communion at family dinner tables. On this subject, Southcott pronounced: 'We don't go to church; we are the Church.' Nevertheless, his own services were so popular that the church was full half an hour before proceedings began.
