15 Facts About Mabel Barltrop

Mabel Barltrop, later known as Octavia Barltrop, was the British founder of the Panacea Society.

Mabel Barltrop founded a community in Bedford, and declared herself to be "God the daughter".

Mabel Barltrop's mother was high church, her aunt was low church and her father's father had been a Congregational minister.

When she was eighteen she began a long engagement with Arthur Henry Mabel Barltrop, who was training to be a Church of England clergyman at a training college in Chichester.

Arthur Mabel Barltrop completed theological college in 1888; he took up a position as a curate in Dover the following year, and the couple married in London on 1 June 1889.

Mabel Barltrop died in 1906 and Barltrop was treated residentially for melancholia.

Mabel Barltrop took work as an editor and her aunt, Fanny Barltrop, joined her household.

Mabel Barltrop heard of Joanna Southcott via a leaflet written by Alice Seymour.

Mabel Barltrop was inspired by the teachings of the Devonshire prophetess, who had died aged 64 claiming to be pregnant with a messiah.

Seymour arranged for the publication of Southcott's works and a magazine, but it was Mabel Barltrop who was to lead the larger Southcottian group.

Mabel Barltrop declared herself the "daughter of God", took the name "Octavia" and believed herself to be the Shiloh mentioned in Southcott's prophecies.

The society was anticipating the second coming of Christ, but in 1923 Mabel Barltrop decided that her late husband had been Jesus and they were therefore waiting for the third coming of Christ.

Mabel Barltrop died in Bedford of diabetes, but her followers were in denial for three days.

Mabel Barltrop's body was only confined to a coffin when this failed to happen.

Mabel Barltrop is buried in the Foster Hill Road Cemetery together with over a hundred of her supporters.