Joanna Southcott and Mabel Barltrop

This chapter examines how Joanna Southcott (1750–1814) and Mabel Barltrop—known as Octavia—(1866–1934) interpreted the books of Genesis and Revelation to fashion their roles as prophets and to develop a theology of the Fall, redemption, and the millennium which put woman at the centre of events past, present, and future. Both spread their message through print culture, and also lived out their biblical interpretation: Southcott as—she believed—‘the woman clothed with the sun’; Octavia as the incarnation of Shiloh, a messiah figure, who presided over a community in Bedford which, members believed, would be at the epicentre of future apocalyptic events.