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Auction: 17020 - Autographs, Historical Documents, Ephemera and Postal History
Lot: 878

Autographs
Joanna Southcott
1802 (29 May) entire letter to the Earl of Cork in Park Street which reads, "We have searched into every truth & are clear it is no cunningly devised fable but that the Lord has revealed himself to Joanna in 1792, & at various times since down to the present moment; & this is the fullfilling of the ratptures which we are ready to answer from the Bible to all the learned world - we are, My Lord, your most respected servants" and is signed by Stanhope Bruce, Thomas Webster, Thomas P. Foley, George Turner, William Sharp, Peter Morison and John Wilson. The cover bears faint London postmarks and not delivered bearing manuscript endorsements, "no such person in Park St." and "Residents not known at H. Pears. An interesting and important document relating to Joanna Southcott. Photo

Joanna Southcott (1750 – 1814), was a self-described religious prophetess. She was born at Taleford, baptised at Ottery St. Mary, and raised in the village of Gittisham in Devon. In 1892 she began to have visions and automatic writing which fortold many accurate prophesies. She spent all of her savings to publish some pamphlets of her prophesies.


These were read by the Reverend Thomas Foley (a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge) who consulted with his friends, including the engraver William Sharp and the reverends Thomas Webster and Stanhope Bruce, to visit Joanna Southcott in Exeter where they could judge her prophesies. They concluded that she was genuine.


William Sharp (1749 – 1824) was an English line-engraver and artist. Sharp became an adherent of prophetess Joanna Southcott, whom he brought from Exeter to London and kept at his own expense for a considerable time; he made a portrait drawing of her which he engraved

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