J. F. C. Harrison - The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism, 1780-1850

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Routledge Revivals

The Second Coming

First published in 1979, The Second Coming is an experiment in the writing of popular history a contribution to the history of the people who have no history and an exploration of some of the ideas, beliefs and ways of thinking of ordinary men and women in the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. Millenarianism is a conceptual tool with which to explore some aspects of popular thought and culture. It is also seen as an ideology of social change and as a continuing tradition, traced from the end of the seventeenth century to the 1790s, and is shown to be embedded in folk culture.

Abundant in rich and lively descriptions of such colourful characters as Richard Brothers, Joanna Southcott, John Wroe, Zion Ward and Sir William Courtenay, as well as studies of the Shakers, early Mormons and Millerites, the result is a window into the world of ordinary people in the Age of Romanticism.

The Second Coming

Popular Millenarianism 1780-1850

J. F. C. Harrison

First published in 1979

by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd

This edition first published in 2012 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

1979 J. F. C. Harrison

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Publisher's Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer

The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact.

A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 79063687

ISBN 13: 978-0-415-52618-0 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-203-11639-5 (ebk)

THE SECOND COMING

THE SECOND COMING

POPULAR MILLENARIANISM 1780-1850

J. F. C. HARRISON
Professor of History, University of Sussex

First published in 1979
by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd
Store Street, London WCiE 7DD and
Broadway House, Newtown Road,
Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 1EN
Set in 11 on 13 pt Bembo by
Computacomp (UK) Ltd, Fort William, Scotland
and printed in Great Britain by
Unwin Brothers Ltd
The Gresham Press
Old Woking, Surrey
A member of the Staples Printing Group
Plates printed by
Headley Brothers Ltd, Ashford, Kent
J. F. C. Harrison 1979
No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form without permission from the
publisher, except for the quotation of brief
passages in criticism

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Harrison, John Fletcher Clews

The Second Coming
1. Milleniatism England - History
2. Millenialism - United Slates - History
I. Title
236'.3'0942 BR 758

ISBN 0 7100 0191 6

Contents

Illustrations

(between pages 118 and 119)

A PROPHET AND A PROPHETESS

MILLENARIAN IMAGES

THE WORLD'S VIEW

In the writing of this book I have incurred many obligations. To my own University of Sussex I am indebted for leave of absence in which to write and research. Much of the preliminary work was done while on a research fellowship at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, Harvard University, in 1972-3. A social science research fellowship from the Nuffield Foundation in the autumn of 1975 enabled me to get ahead with the writing. Further substantial progress was made at Canberra during the (northern hemisphere) summer of 1977, thanks to a visiting research fellowship in the History Department, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. And the book was completed at Madison, Wisconsin, USA, while I was Herbert F.Johnson Research Professor at the Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin, for the academic year 1977-8. To these institutions I am grateful for financial support and the provision of ideal working conditions.

Many friends, colleagues and acquaintances have helped me with information, comments and expert opinions, and I would like to thank them all: Patricia Allderidge, Richard Bushman, A. W, Exell, Robert Fogarty, Clarke Garrett, H. J. Haden, Ann Hone, Dafydd Ifan, Beynon John, Peter Lineham, David Lovejoy, Ernest Martin, Ted Milligan, Howard Murphy, Marcia Pointon, Marsha Keith Schuchard, Malcolm Thomas, Edward Thompson, Malcolm Thorp, and Michael Wadsworth. Barry Smith read all except the final chapter of the manuscript, and I have benefited greatly from his advice.

J.F.C.H.

The author wishes to thank the following for their help in providing photographs and granting permission for the use of material in the plates shown: The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the Rosenwald Collection (3); the Trustees of the British Museum, London (7, 8); the Tate Gallery, London (4, 5, 6); Houghton Library, Harvard University (9).

This book is an experiment in the writing of popular history - a contribution to the history of the people who have no history. It stems in part from a sympathy with the view expressed by an old Yorkshireman in 1886:

Surely, Sir, if it is the people who form the nation ..., what they do, suffer, enjoy, think and feel... is real history, far more than the story of a few who have borne titles and made laws, the benefit of which has been mostly for themselves.

History from below is in fact no more 'real' than history from above; but it is still largely true that 'the people' in this sense are a dimension missing from many interpretations of the past. Even when some attention is paid to 'what they do, suffer, enjoy', it is rare to find any analysis of what they 'think and feel'.

The reasons for this neglect are not far to seek. It is not easy for the historian to hear the voices of the people, for they have left relatively few records, and their views and opinions are drowned or crowded out by the louder and more insistent voices of the educated classes. In the records of the past the labouring man or small shopkeeper only seldom speaks for himself, and when he does it is to mention briefly the externals of his life, not what he 'thinks and feels'. He appears upon the stage of history indirectly, via the speeches of others. We see him only through the eyes of outsiders who, even when sympathetic, were far removed from his mental world. The problem of understanding the mind of the 'lower orders' is not new. Henry Moseley, an inspector of schools, observed in 1845:

The fact is that the inner life of the classes below us in society is never penetrated by us. We are profoundly ignorant of the springs of public

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