Agapemonites
| Community of The Son of Man | |
A 1907 postcard of the Agapemone, Spaxton, Somerset
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| Founded | 1846 |
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| Founder | Henry Prince |
| Extinction | 1956 |
| Type | Religious sect |
| Headquarters | Spaxton, Somerset, England |
| Coordinates | 51°07′40″N 3°05′50″W / 51.1279°N 3.0972°WCoordinates: 51°07′40″N 3°05′50″W / 51.1279°N 3.0972°W |
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Membership
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100–500 |
The Agapemonites or Community of The Son of Man was a Christian religious group or sect that existed in England from 1846 to 1956. It was named from the Greek: agapemone meaning "abode of love". The Agapemone community was founded by the Reverend Henry Prince in Spaxton, Somerset. The sect also built a church in Upper Clapton, London, and briefly had bases in Stoke-by-Clare in Suffolk, Brighton and Weymouth.
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. The Church of England had dismissed Prince earlier in his career for his radical teachings. The Agapemonites predicted the imminent return of Jesus Christ. According to newspaper accounts, Prince's successor, John Hugh Smyth-Pigott, declared himself Jesus Christ reincarnate.
The Agapemone community consisted mostly of wealthy unmarried women. Both Prince and Smyth-Pigott took many spiritual brides. Later investigations have shown that these "brides" were not solely spiritual and that some produced illegitimate children. In 1860, Prince lost a lawsuit brought on behalf of Louisa Nottidge by the Nottidge family and the group vanished from the public eye. It finally closed in 1956 when the last member died.
The Reverend Henry James Prince (1811–99) studied medicine at Guy's Hospital, obtained his qualifications in 1832 and was appointed medical officer to the General Hospital in Bath, his native city. Compelled by ill health to abandon his profession, he entered himself in 1837 as a student at St David's College, Lampeter (now the Lampeter campus of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David), where he gathered about him a band of earnest 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, where he had sole charge during the illness and absence of the rector, the Reverend Samuel Starkey.
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