Louisa Nottidge & The Spiritual Brides of The Agapemone

Louisa Nottidge was a young Victorian woman whose unjust detention in a lunatic asylum attracted widespread public attention in mid-19th century England. Her family had her committed after she and three of her sisters joined a Victorian Cult called The Agapemonites or Community of The Son of Man that was created in 1846. In this blog article we will not only uncover Louisa's hidden herstory - we'll also be finding out more about some of the other women who were part of this unique and bizzare isolated religious community.

THE WOMAN IN WHITE

The Cult was named after Agapemone meaning "Abode of Love" in Greek. The ideas of the community were based on the theories of various German religious mystics and its primary object was the spiritualisation of the matrimonial state and the submission of women. The Agapemone community consisted mostly of wealthy unmarried women and the cult’s two main male leaders took many spiritual brides.

In that same period, several sensational cases came to light in the newspapers of sane women - and a few men - being incarcerated against their will in lunatic asylums - just for the convenience or financial gain of their immediate families or spouses. The public hysteria surrounding these dramatic and shocking stories was further exploited by the writer Wilkie Collins, who published the best-selling novel The Woman In White in 1860 which features the female character of Laura who is imprisoned in an asylum for the insane. 

BOCKING MILL, ESSEX

What happened to Louisa Nottidge is still of interest today with respect to the rights of psychiatric patients, women's rights, and the conflict between freedom of religion and the legal process. Despite this her name is little remembered, and her story has almost faded into obscurity, along with the notorious Agapemone cult. 

Louisa Jane Nottidge was born in 1802 at her grandmother's abode, Mill House in Bocking, Essex. Her parents, Josias and Emily Nottidge were wealthy and respectable merchants who lived in a large house on an eight-acre estate, in Wixoe, Suffolk. From her early youth Louisa’s reading had been directed towards religious texts & she attended church regularly, along with her six sisters and four brothers.

ONLY KNOWN IMAGE OF PRINCE

Henry James Prince was born in 1811 in the city of Bath. His family owned property in Jamaica which included slaves and they were financially compensated when slavery was abolished. Prince’s father died when he was a young man, and Prince’s mother took in a lodger - a wealthy older woman named Martha, who was a devout Catholic. She soon converted to Christianity and became Prince's first wife. Prince studied medicine at Guy's Hospital, qualifying in 1832 and was appointed medical officer to the General Hospital in Bath. Abandoning his profession due to his own ill health, he then went to St David's College, Lampeter to study Theology where he gathered together a band of  religious enthusiasts known as the Lampeter Brethren. 

The  vice principal of the college contacted the Bishop of Bath and Wells who, in 1846, installed Prince as the curate of Charlinch in Somerset, working alongside the Rev. Starkey who seemed to be struggling to maintain his duties alone. Prince was considered to be a holier-than-thou troublemaker, and the church authorities packed him off to a quiet rural parish hoping that he would fade away into obscurity.

Attendances at the church had been small until, during one of the services, Prince acted as if he was possessed, throwing himself physically around the church and talking in tongues. The Congregation grew steadily each week as the "possession" stunt was constantly repeated. The new flock was then divided, with separate services for men and women. Subsequently, Price separated them again into the sinners and the righteous, the latter of which generally included all the wealthy or single females. 

Eventually, the bishop was summoned to investigate these unusual practices. By that time, Prince had contracted his first "spiritual marriage" and had persuaded himself & all his loyal followers that he had been absorbed into the personality of God and had become a visible embodiment of the Holy Spirit to be worshiped and served in luxurious surroundings by all his followers. His justification for this was:

    “If Prince was the visible manifestation of God on earth, the Holy Ghost - how could he toil in the same vineyard as these sinful mortals?” (The Reverend Prince and his Abode of Love, C Mander)

The Reverend Starkey fully embraced Price’s doctrines and had become became a devoted disciple too. Together they procured many conversions in the countryside and in the  towns. The rector was subsequently deprived of his living and Prince was  defrocked by the Anglican Church but this action failed to stop either of them preaching. 

Together with a few other disciples, Prince and Starkey formed the Charlinch Free Church, which had a very brief existence, meeting in a supportive farmer's barn. During his time at Charlich, Prince’s wife Martha died. He had married her in order that she finance his way through college. Prince used money inherited on the death of Martha, to then marry Julia Starkey - some said with indecent haste. She was the sister of the Rev. Starkey and was yet another older woman with her own income. 

Riding high with a full church and a clutch of wealthy patrons, Prince’s licence to preach was suddenly revoked by the Bishop of Bath and Wells amid rumours of 'carnal insinuations' with the converted ladies of Charlich.  Again this failed to stop Prince. He and his disciples all moved to Stoke-by-Clare in Suffolk where Prince started again to build up a congregation, which grew over the couple of years he was there. It was here in Suffolk that the Nottidge Sisters first heard Prince preaching and came into contact with him.

The Bishop of Ely then expelled Prince & Starkey from the Anglican Church. Undaunted, Prince opened Adullam Chapel in the North Laine area of Brighton, whilst Starkey went to set things up in Weymouth. Amongst the many elderly spinsters and young unmarried ladies of respectable Victorian society, who either lived or visited the south coast, Prince found more potential members of his congregation. 

In a large house in Belfield Terrace, Weymouth he set up an embryonic version of the cult that was to follow. The idea of the Abode of Love was not Prince's invention however - similar experiments, inspired by the text of the Song of Solomon, had been conceived before and were heavily condemned by the church as sinful and degenerate. 

"The Abode of Love did not mean, as it seemed to imply, unlimited sexual freedom. Love at Belfield Terrace and later at Spaxton was to be spiritual. In the course of time Prince constructed an elaborate system of Angels and Archangels, a celestial hierarchy promoting and demoting the faithful at will according to their favour and the cash at their disposal. This was to be a commercial as well as a spiritual venture. Not even the Holy Ghost could build an earthly paradise on faith alone."

( C.Mander)

ROYAL HOTEL IN 1912

At one meeting in Weymouth, a number of followers & disciples - estimated by Prince to be 500 but said by his critics to be but one fifth of that number - were gathered together, and were instructed by "The Lamb" "to divest themselves of their possessions and throw them into the common stock”. This was done, even by the poorest members of the congregation. Persuading rich and poor alike that 'in the day of wrath all property would be dirt'  swelled the group's bank balance further. 

The revelation that Prince was the son of God   took place at the assembly rooms in the Royal Hotel Weymouth. The congregation were told that only those who received Prince as the son of God would be saved from Armageddon. It was estimated that many hundreds of souls were saved that day - mainly aging spinsters but it was certainly enough to begin to finance a proper place of worship on a much grander scale than a rented house in Weymouth. It was said that Prince collected the considerable sum of £30,000 from his time on the South Coast.

  “From Brighton, Prince returned to Somerset with 30,000 pounds in his pockets, most of it contributed by his society admirers. He and his followers travelled in a long procession of carriages with liveried coachmen. At Weymouth the entourage stayed at the Royal Hotel, where Prince held a reception and announced his plans for the setting up of an Agapemone or Abode of Love. Some 200 local people of influence, invited especially for this purpose, crowded into the ballroom and agreed to give up all or part of their worldly possessions in order to be saved.”

THE AGAPEMON COMMUNITY, SPAXTON 

Two hundred acres of land was purchased in the Spaxton Valley and plans were drawn up to create a new Abode of Love. Whenever more finances were needed to keep the construction of paradise on schedule, Prince exhorted his followers to sell a little more for the Lord, or simply demanded that "The Lord had need of fifty pounds Amen,". Then he finally hit upon the ingeneous idea of marrying his most devoted followers and preachers to the wealthy older spinsters to secure even more funds.

On the death of Josias Nottidge in 1844, his unmarried daughters had each inherited the sum of £6,000. The charismatic Prince wasted no time in persuading four of them to contribute it all towards the founding of his new religious community in Somerset. They agreed in order that they would be saved on judgement day.

THE AGAPEMON CHAPEL

Extensive building work was undertaken to accommodate all the new members and existing followers at Four Forks in Spaxton.

 Behind 15-foot high walls Prince built a multi-bedroomed house with an attached chapel, as well as a gazebo, stables, and cottages, all set within landscaped gardens that were called “Eden”.

The buildings were designed by follower Rev. William Cobbe, the brother of early feminist and suffragist supporter Frances Power Cobbe. The buttressed chapel, with its pinnacles and stained glass, was completed in 1845.

INTERIOR OF CHAPEL

Prince and all his favoured women lived in the 16-bedroom gabled house with the turreted bay windows. The stone chapel was adorned with a rampant lion growling in the direction of the former Charlinch parish church. The walls were built not only to keep outsiders out, but also to keep Agapemonites in. Price cut them off from their families and the outside world so he could have complete power over them all.

A VICTORIAN GROUP OUTSIDE THE LAMB INN

The best place to observe the comings and goings at the Abode of Love was at the Lamb Inn, located next door to the main house. The bar served many a journalist covering the numerous scandals that would surround the self-appointed son of God and his cult over the ensuing years.

In 1845 three of the Nottidge sisters travelled to Somerset - along with Prince - with a view to residing at the new community. During the journey, Prince persuaded Harriet, Agnes and Clara Nottidge to marry three leading clergymen from the Agapemone. They all wed in Swansea, on 9^th July 1845. The sisters were steamrollered into these spiritual unions, and were not allowed to contact their family beforehand. Harriet married Rev. Lewis Price, Agnes married Rev George Thomas and Clara married Rev. William Cobbe. 

THE ABODE OF LOVE

Clara and Harriet would live happily in the Abode of Love with their spiritual husbands for many years. Agnes, would later be banished from the church – with no rights to remove her cash  - after angering Prince and being branded a “fallen woman”. Knowing there was another £6,000 still up for grabs, Prince was quick to encourage Louisa Nottidge to come and join her three sisters at The Agapemone. 

Once she was a part of the community, Agnes, who was the eldest and most rebellious of the Nottidge sisters, objected to the spiritual marriage and celibate lifestyle demanded of her and became pregnant. If she committed adultery with another follower, her husband never openly accused her of it, and she later gained sole custody of the child in 1850 after proving herself of good moral character before a court. Having her doubts after experiencing life at The Abode of Love for herself, 

Agnes had initially written to Louisa warning her not to come to Spaxton but Louisa ignored her advice and travelled to Somerset anyway. Prince had demanded her presence at Spaxton and once she arrived he lodged her in one of the cottages in the grounds whilst he searched for a suitable spouse. 

Understandably, Louisa’s widowed mother Emily was worried about the great spiritual and financial influence that Prince had established over all of her daughters. At her wits end, she instructed her son Edmund, her nephew Edward Nottidge, and her son-in-law, Frederick Ripley, to travel down to Somerset to rescue the yet unmarried Louisa.  What they did next, I am sure they all genuinely believed was for Louisa’s own good.

THE LAMB INN TODAY

Despite the high walls, the three men succeeded in removing Louisa from Prince’s cult - against her will - in November 1846, Locals drinking at the Lamb Inn heard frantic screaming  coming from within the great wall as she resisted the attempts by her family to 'rescue' her. When they got outside they saw the young woman being bundled - still screaming - into a coach that disappeared into the night.

MOORCROFT ASYLUM 1800 & 2006

The family liberators promptly turned into her captors and imprisoned Louisa in Ripley's villa near Regents Park in London. Following Louisa's persistent claims regarding the divinity of Prince, her mother enlisted medical help and had Louisa certified insane. She then placed her in Moorcroft House Asylum in Hillingdon. Dr. Stilwell, the presiding physician, made notes on Louisa's condition and treatment which were recorded in The Lancet. Whilst in the Asylum, Louisa continued to maintain that Prince was a holy reincarnation. She repeatedly told people that God would eventually save her and judge them when Armageddon came.

On Prince's orders envoys were sent out to scour the country looking for Louisa. She finally managed to escape from the asylum in January 1848. After 18 months of fruitless searching, word reached Prince that Louisa had was hiding out in a Hotel in Cavendish Square, London so he sent her brother-in-law there to escort her back to the fold. As she waited at Paddington station to return to The Agapemone with Rev. William Cobbe, she was picked up by asylum officials and was locked up once again. Prince made an immediate application to the Commissioners of Lunacy who declared Louisa to be sane. A detailed report made by Bryan Procter led to her release in May 1848. 

Louisa then sued her brother, cousin and brother-in-law, Ripley, for abduction and false imprisonment in Nottidge v. Ripley and Another (1849); the trial was reported daily in The Times newspaper. In 1850 Charles Dickens also reported on the case too. 

Bryan Procter was called as a professional medical witness and The Lord Chief Baron pronounced a famous dictum that stated: "You ought to liberate every person who is not dangerous to himself or to others."

 

Louisa won the case with damages, proving that she had been illegally detained and was of sound mind. On her release, Louisa immediately transferred all her inheritance money to Prince's bank account and retired behind the walls at Spaxton for the rest of her life but she was never married off to anyone - perhaps as a punishment, or because her cash had been obtained anyway. Some money from her inheritance was used to buy two bloodhounds to protect the faithful from any further 'kidnappings" 

Wilkie Collins went on to dedicate his novel The Woman In White to Bryan Procter. Harriet Martineau wrote a biography of Procter and said the following:

"For many years Mr Procter held the lucrative but not very congenial appointment of Commissioner of Lunacy; the responsibility of which was irksome, and occasionally - as in the case of Miss Nottidge, who was carried off from The Agapemone - alarming to a man of sensitive nature, and a hater of conflict."

THE ABODE OF LOVE

Despite - or perhaps even because of - the scandals, there was no shortage of eager new converts desperate to pay money to get into what they saw as a Utopian religious paradise where they could be saved from sin. What they didn't realize was that Prince ruled in such a despotic & dominant style that they soon became heavily intitutionlized. 

The membership went from 60 to over 200 in the first few years. Some of his followers were treated likes slaves, Nobody was paid a penny for administering to Prices needs and whilst he lived in comfort surrounded by the most attractive women in the main house, the other 'saints' worked on the farm or in the gardens, living in the small cottages, husbands separated from wives. Nobody dared question Prince just as no one dared questioned the word of God.

"Prince of course, enjoyed himself immensely. He ate well, drank well - he had left his total abstinence period far behind - and stocked his cellars with the best wines, Above all he exercised absolute authority over a large number of men and women who worshipped him as God. Life was pleasant, heavenly perhaps, and some of the women were most desirable."  (C.Mander The Reverend Prince and his Abode of Love.)

Carried away by his notion that he was the son of God, Prince wrongly believed in his own infallibility and assumed that he could do whatever he pleased and get away with it. Prince persistently claimed that as the Holy Ghost, it was his duty to bring heavenly love to earth and to 'purify' virgins He would later publish convoluted theological justifications for his rape of a young virgin in front of his gathered congregation.

In 1856, described as both the 'Great Manifestation' and a 'divine purification’ Prince had devised an elaborate scheme to enable him to carry out one of his many sexual obsessions - the sacrificial deflowering of a beautiful young virgin. He demanded that a selection of suitable girls be made available in the chapel so he could choose the one to be 'favoured”. 

He then engaged in public ceremonial rape and had full sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old follower Zoe Patterson, on a billiard Table, in front of a large congregation. His seemingly "hypnotized" victim was sexually violated to the accompanying sound of the chapel organ and the singing of hymns while Prince wore flowing red velvet robes. 

In his own account he simply said ‘Thus the Holy Ghost took flesh in the presence of those whom he had called as flesh. He took this flesh absolutely in his sovereign will, and with the power and authority of God.’

The resulting child that was born nine months later was called Eve. She was condemned and denied by Prince as a “devil child” and was not recognized by him as his own flesh and blood. He had assured his followers that as a “God” he could not impregnate any women - only purify them.

The scandal led to the condemnation and voluntary leaving of the cult by of some of his most faithful followers, who were unable to endure what they regarded as “the amazing mixture of blasphemy and immorality offered for their acceptance”. Those that left also took their money with them. The most prominent of those who remained - along with their cash - were rewarded by Prince and given titles such as the "Anointed Ones", the "Angel of the Last Trumpet" or the "Seven Witnesses". 

Zoe Patterson’s child grew up in the community, and not surprisingly, was a quiet shy girl.  Zoe, meanwhile took her place at 'Beloveds' right hand as a Bride of the Lamb. There were other ‘Brides’ too - quite how many is hard to unravel. The embroidered bacchanalian stories about the cult normally started in the Lamb Inn and but the cries of moral outrage from society at large that greeted Prince's pamphlets justifying his sacred sex life were widespread and loud.

WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON

As a result, a siege mentality came over the community. Locked away behind the high brick wall they refused admittance to all outsiders - a hand would shoot out through a trap to collect goods delivered by local tradesmen. This self-imposed isolation only fueled the exaggeration of the stories about what debauchery really went on behind the closed doors. 

A favourite locals tale described how Mr Prince would choose his next female companion by sitting on a revolving stage and seeing who was in front of him when it stopped turning. The young ladies were said to have then stripped naked to bathe him.

Prince's claims of divinity, his erratic behaviour, and the sexually provocative nature of his group always garnered a lot of newspaper headlines. 

Few outsiders succeeded in visiting this secretive community but one who did was a journalist and student of religious cults, William Hepworth Dixon, who gained an audience with Prince after writing a letter addressed to "The Lord God, Spaxton, Somerset". 

PRINCE AND HIS FOLLOWERS

He discovered that the interior of the chapel was not quite in keeping with the sect's pious image: it was furnished with comfortable easy chairs, a rich red Persian carpet and a billiard table. Far from being invited to pray, Dixon was offered a sherry. Eventually, he was introduced to Prince, who received him in a black frock coat and white cravat and was surrounded by his female admirers. Dixon published a measured account of the community in his book Spiritual Wives. Dixon records a picture of a thriving, if somewhat depleted, community with a middle-aged Prince at the centre surrounded by doting billiard-playing beauties. 

He gives a pictures of a group whose great days are past, of men who have spent their lives seeking to save the world but who now wait for what they see as the inevitable end:

 “A dozen ardent clergymen…run away from their posts, shut themselves up in a garden, surround themselves with beautiful women, muse and dream…and waiting in the midst of luxury and idleness for the whole world to be damned. …[I]n the meantime, the reverend gentlemen play a game of billiards in what was once their church…”

In reality, Prince, the ultimate religious con-man had grown a large following while operating a extortion scheme which systematically manipulated women – and  men - from within the group by controlling them both financially and sexually. Prince met young or wealthy older single women, and "by affectation of extraordinary piety, inoculated them with his peculiar tenets". 

After that, he cornered them and bullied them into marrying men who were also under his control and insisted that the Brides wear black dresses for the weddings. After the marriages, Reverend Prince would use his status as a messiah and apply some more group intimidation. He fully exploited the lack of any rights for women in Victorian Britain in order to separate the women from their money – and in the case of Zoe Patterson – from her virginity. Some would say these women must have been totally mad to stay there and just give him all their money, but Prince had such a strong religious hold over them all, that they were blinded to his real intent and purposes and believed what he told them to be the truth.

Two years after Louisa Nottidge’s death in 1858, her brother and will executor, Ralph Nottidge, sued Prince in order to recoup the money that Louisa had given him as a result of his undue influence over her. The case of Nottidge v. Prince (1860) was reported heavily in The Times newspaper. The Nottidges won the case, with costs. Punch Magazine then launched a campaign to encourage Prince to move to America, to join Brigham Young and his Mormons in the Utah desert. 

Despite the fact that Louisa had already proved that she was sane and could act as her own guardian, 10 years earlier when she was abductedm Mr. Nottidge claimed that his sister was not of sound mind while giving the gift of her money, since she was seduced by Prince's claims of divinity. The lawyers discussed whether or not Prince's claims of being the Messiah constituted fraud. They decided it did. The vice-chancellor in the case is quoted as saying "By imposing a belief in his supernatural character upon her weak mind...the imposter was the influencing motive for the gift, therefore vitiating it entirely."

THE CLAPTON CHURCH

'Prince outlived many of his 'saints' giving further credence to his claim that he was immortal. In 1896 aged 85 he emerged from behind the walls of Spaxton to initiate the building of an ornate church in Clapton in North London complete with a 155ft tower of Portland stone, intricate oak hammer-beam roof and stained glass windows depicting the submission of womankind to man. The church was dedicated to the Ark of the Covenant and one of the first preachers appointed was the Reverend John Hugh Smyth-Pigott. He was in his forties and had been an academic and a sailor before entering the church. 

The church drew a fair crowd, though it probably helped that Pigott was still an ordained Anglican priest. As such the Agapemonite influence was kept discreet, while the respectability he brought with him, elevated Pigott still further within the sect. 

The development of the Clapton Church was all the more surprising since in Prince’s later years the Agapemonites had done little in the way of evangelistic preaching. It is uncertain whether the founding of this new church, at which non-resident sympathizers of the Spraxton community also occasionally met, had any direct connection with the choice of Prince’s successor, or whether Prince had any plans for the continuance of his sect after his death.

In 1899, Prince finally died at the age of 88. His death came as a devastating shock to the community. They were thrown into complete confusion and with no funeral plans for one who many seem to have genuinely believed to have been immortal they hurriedly buried him in the grounds of the chapel, with his coffin positioned vertically so that he would be standing on the day of his resurrection. Reeling from the shock some members packed their bags and left whilst others tried to contact their Beloved through spiritualist séances. 

JOHN SMYTH-PIGGOTT

On hearing the news that the bereaved sisters of the Abode of Love were in need of a new heavenly bridegroom a light lit up in the eyes of the Reverend Smyth-Piggot - said by some to be a divine light. 

Reverend Smyth-Pigott started leading meetings of the community. With the help of Douglas Hamilton, Prince's faithful retainer, Smyth-Piggot was enthroned as the new Saviour of Mankind at the Church of the Ark of the Covenant in Clapton in September 1902 before a not entirely friendly crowd of 6000 who booed and jeered during the inauguration and who had to be pressed back by a group of mounted police to allow the new messiah to leave. 

The riotous scenes that followed made it into the papers, and the following week an alleged three thousand protestors gathered outside the church to declare Pigott a heretic. The whole thing allegedly culminated in Pigott attempting and failing to “walk on water” on Clapton Pond.

JOHN SMYTH-PIGGOTT

After this, Smyth-Piggot moved to Spaxton permanantley with his wife Catherine and slipped into Prince's shoes with consummate ease sparking a mini-revival in the cult's fortunes. He recruited 50 new young female followers to supplement the ageing population of Agapemonites.  All were vetted by Sister Eve Patterson the now grown-up 'Devil child' who had come to hold a senior clerical and administration position in the community.

Smyth-Piggot set about his new role with great expense and energy; he bought a motor car and telephone, added a laundry and commissioned new cottages in the Arts and Crafts style to be built at Four Forks by members of the Agapemonites, including Joseph Morris and his daughters, Olive & Violet. They were the family building firm chosen to design the Church in Clapton and they had a strong connection with the sect. 

RISING SON OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

Violet Morris was an architect and her sister Olive was an engineer, and both put their skills to use in service of the brotherhood when they had helped design the new church in London. Their father was a Quaker, but he still helped to purchase the grounds for the Agapemone Cult. The church in London was decorated with statues and stained glass images that, while all still strictly Christian in nature, all held great symbolic meaning for the cult too. Statues drawn from the Book of Revelations adorned the towers, while above a door was written “LOVE IN JUDGMENT AND JUDGMENT UNTO VICTORY”. A Pelican and Phoenix representing sacrifice and rebirth were shown in mosaic, perhaps being an indication of Pigott’s ambitions.

The stained glass windows were designed by Walter Crane, a well-known illustrator. The most famous of these is “The Rising Sun of Righteousness”, showing a sun heralded by angels as it rises from the sea. To this day it is considered one of the finest examples of Victorian stained glass.

INTERIOR OF CLAPTON CHURCH

Violet as an architect was involved with the overall design of the "Ark." Olive, a wood-carver and an engineer, also contributed. She is thought to have carved the pulpit and the lectern. Looking at the iconography of the church, it is still possible to sense something of the heady atmosphere which the charismatic leaders of the cult had created, and which drew such people as these extraordinary women into it's orbit.

Smyth-Piggott introduced new stock to the run down farm back in Spaxton and most of all busied himself in his capacity as the heavenly bridegroom. The numbers at Spraxton were sometimes reinforced by visitors from a Norwegian sister house which Smyth-Pigott also frequently visited. He was "If not a sexual maniac at least a man obsessed with sex in his daily life" ( Donald McCormick.Temple of Love). 

MIRZA GHULAM AHMED

Smyth-Piggott took Ruth Anne Preece as his second wife and she had three children by him, named Glory, Power and Life.  By 1902 his fame had spread as far as India, from where another self-proclaimed Messiah from the Ahmadiyya movement - an offshoot of Islam - warned him about false teachings.

 In Deluded Inmates, Frantic Ravers and Communists: A sociological Study of the Agapemone, a sect of Victorian Apocalyptic Milleniars’. Dr. Joshua Schwieso, a local west country historian writes: 

‘We can see traces of Agapemone activities in India in 1902…in this very year another claimer to messiahship in India, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, chief of Qadian, Punjab, published an announcement in which Pigott was given a warning that…….if he did not abstain from his claim to godship then he would immediately be destroyed/turned to dust and bones.’

This was also published in newspapers in America and Europe. Due to the fact that Pigott had access to the outside world, he was informed about this announcement and knew about the death prophecy against him. Meanwhile, Catherine Smyth-Piggot the long suffering first wife busied herself with charity work in the area and was remembered with great affection by locals for many years after. 

SMYTHE-PIGGOTT PREACHING

In 1905 the registrar was called to Spaxton to record the birth of Glory, the daughter of Pigott and his “spiritual second wife” Ruth. Pigott’s legal wife Catherine was also present at the ceremony, in which Pigott made no secret of his Messianic pretenses. The registrar also noted that apart from Pigott and his secretary, the rest of the congregation seemed to be entirely female. In fact it seems that almost the entire male part of the flock had left on Pigott’s accession to the throne. 

Glory’s birth was immediately followed by tragedy, however, when an ex-Agapemonite and alcoholic drowned herself in Clapton Pond, leading to much condemnation of Pigott’s teachings.

The cult's secretary was Charles Stokes Read, and some journalists later claimed that he was the true power in the Agapemonite church at this time. He was the one who arranged for announcements to be made to the journalists, and he was the one who told them that Ruth had borne her “spiritual husband” two more children. The latter story included the detail that Pigott was still an accredited Anglican priest, and created enough of a scandal that a motion was raised to defrock him and an angry crowd gathered to lynch him. 

NEWPAPER STORY ON PIGGOTT

Fortunately for Smyth-Piggott, he had been sent off to Norway by Read in order to keep him out of the way during the church hearing. Unfortunately for Read the mob then decided Read would be a worthy substitute for tarring and feathering and he was subjected to the indignity, something which may have contributed to his death the following year.

Smyth-Pigott died in 1927 and after this the sect membership declined rapidly. 

The sect did gain certain respectability in it's final years, under the leadership of Douglas Hamiliton who was a secretive man with very puritanical leanings. He ran things at Spaxton with Sister Eve but by 1929 only 33 women, 1 girl and 3 men were left and the community became a sort of liberal finishing school reportedly full of "disillusioned old women and frustrated and disappointed young women."  

As the old guard died, Sister Ruth became the leader and when she died in 1956 the community finally closed. Her funeral was the only time when outsiders were admitted to the chapel. 

The property was finally sold off in 1958. The complex of buildings became known as Barford Gables and the chapel was later used as a studio for the production of BBC animated children's television programmes in the 1960’s - including the classic Trumpton and Camberwick Green. Curious viewers may have wondered why, in spite of boasting a rich assortment of people from various trades and occupations, neither Village seemed to have a vicar. Now you know why! 

In 1976 Bridgwater Author Charles Mander wrote a book called ‘The Reverend Prince and his Abode of Love‘ and subsequently turned this into a play for the Bridgwater Youth Theatre. This was immediately banned as blasphemous by the principle of Bridgwater College.

On January 10th 1981, exactly 82 years after the death of the Son of God in Spaxton, the Bridgwater based Sheep Worrying Theatre Group put on the banned play. Scripted by Charles Mander with music by Brian Smedley the large cast had a capacity audience with people being turned away at the door. The theatre group had been formed by ex-members of the Youth Theatre that had been axed in the first wave of Tory cuts in 1980 and now, independent, they found that they could put on whatever plays they wanted.

The 1980’s were about to herald Mrs Thatcher’s espousal of ‘Victorian values‘ and so Charles Mander declared in the programme notes “The story is an outrage against the Victorian establishment, Victorian morals and Victorian hypocrisy“ describing Princes actions as a “supreme confidence trick“he aptly quoted from Aldous Huxley’s essay about Prince saying “There is no dogma so queer, no behaviour so eccentric or even outrageous but a group of people can be found to think it divinely inspired.“

Smyth-Pigott's grand daughter, Margaret Campbell, recalled that her grandmother Ruth Preece had warned her that there were many stories made up about Smyth-Pigott but that essentially he was a 'good man'. 

Campbell argued that Smyth-Pigott did not have affairs although he did have two bigamous wives. She claimed that both wives were happy with the arrangement - Catherine being older and unable to have children - and that the sect had to be viewed in its original historical context, emerging shortly after religious emancipation in the 1830s.

Campbell said that it allowed many women an opportunity to lead an alternative lifestyle to their only other options of becoming either a governess or a wife and stated that, like Louisa Nottidge, many of the women lived in luxury at the Agapemone until their deaths. She recalled growing up in the cult as a very happy experience in an interview to the Henley Standard in 2016, shortly before her death. 

Campbell argued that Beloved had once given a sermon in which he said, 'Christ is no longer here (pointing skywards) but here (pointing to his chest),' thereby expounding the central Christian doctrine of Christ within every Christian. She claimed that this had been twisted by the media for their own aims. 

In 2006 Glory’s daughter, Kate Barlow published an account of her life as a child with her family in the sect. She wrote of visiting her grandmother at the  “Abode of Love” after World War II.

The book includes family photographs and details of conversations she had as a child with the then elderly sect members. Kate Barlow deftly dispels the stories of a 'revolving stage of virgins' as described by one newspaper at the time. She dismisses this as myth in her memoir 'The Abode of Love' but details many other interesting aspects of the cult such as its own signature tea which was served at 4pm every day. 

The “Ark of the Covenant” in Clapton went on the market in 2010, and was sold to the Georgian Orthodox Church for £1 million. It was this sale that led to the final piece of drama in the history of the Agapemonites and their brides. The deeds of the church claimed that the proceeds of its sale should be put “to the benefit of the Agapemonites”, and with the church defunct the six grand-daughters of John Hugh Smyth-Pigott appeared in court to claim the money. However the judge in the case ruled against them, because thankfully they could not find any charity or organisaton in the modern day that had anything like the same ethos of the Agapemonites. It was decided that the Charity Commission would distribute the funds to many good causes.

INTERVIEW WITH DR JOSHUA SCHWIESO ABOUT THE ABODE OF LOVE 

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