In St Johns Wood today, North West London,  I passed my old primary school – a Victorian building where we used to enter via girls and boys staircases and where there was an outside toilet block and the girls and boys had to play in separate playgrounds.  This was in the early 1960’s but not much had changed since the edifice was built and yet I was happy in this strange place.

One feature of this institution was that the older children were allowed out at lunchtime to buy sweets at the local shops and to cross two roads to play in the “little park” which was opposite Lords Cricket Ground.  In the park were the remnants of the church “burial ground” and amongst the gravestones was that of Joanna Southcott.  In fact I learned today that the mews behind Barrow Hill School is called Soutchcott Mews and in this dead end street my brother and I were occasionally treated to a firework display by the local butcher and his children on Guy Fawkes night.  Joanna Southcott’s grave was one on which, I regret to say,  we children played during our lunchtimes and somehow we knew that it held some special significance although we knew not what.  Fast forward 50 years to my life in Colmworth where the 15th Century Church was in need of money to repair windows.  I was looking for charitable trusts that might have money to donate to our historic church and came upon the Panacea Society of Bedford which has a tremendous amount of money in trust but whose funds might only be used for research into historical theology.  I read about the Society and realized that their origins were traced to a series of letters written between four women who had a common interest in the life and message of Joanna Southcott.  The same Joanna Southcott buried in my childhood playground.

For more on Joanna Southcott and the Panacea Society see Panaceatrust.org or see the notes below.  Strange connections between my childhood haunts and Bedford. Sorry for playing on your grave Joanna.

Birth:	1750
Death:	Dec. 27, 1814
Joanna Southcott was a domestic servant from Exeter until, in 1790, she began to write prophecies which attracted a considerable following. She settled in London in 1802 and began to “seal” the 144,000 elect, declaring herself to be the “woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars” (Revelation, Chapter Twelve, Verse One). At the age of 64, she announced that, on the 19th. October 1814, she was to be delivered of a son, the Shiloh of the Book of Genesis, Chapter Forty-Nine, Verse Ten : “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a law-giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come ; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.” The birth did not take place ; but, two months later, Miss Southcott died. She left behind a locked wooden box with instructions that it was not to be opened until a time of national emergency, and only in the presence of all the twenty-four Bishops of England. Attempts were made to persuade the senior clergy to open it during the Crimean War and, again, during the First World War, but no Bishop was willing to attend such an event. The box was, however, opened in 1927, although only one Right Reverend turned up. The box contained nothing but a few odds and ends and a lottery ticket. However, the Panacea Society of Bedford, which continues to this day, claims that it was not the real box, and that they are in possession of the genuine article. (bio by: Iain MacFarlaine) Cause of death: Brain Fever
Burial: St Johns Wood Burial Ground St Johns Wood City of Westminster Greater London, England