The Clapton Messiah

Hackney has long had a proud tradition of non-conformity, and this bizarre story definitely highlights that fact. One of the stranger religious sects that existed in this area, or indeed anywhere, albeit only briefly, has today been all but forgotten, but for the architectural wonder it has left behind.

A century ago, a certain John Hugh Smyth-Pigott declared himself the messiah, and he did so in Clapton, at what was then known as the Church of the Ark of the Covenant, an unusual building, which had been built by members of the Agapemonite sect some ten years earlier, in 1892.

The Agapemonites (from Agapemone, literally 'the abode of love'), were founded in Brighton in the 1840s by a disaffected Anglican priest, Henry James Prince. Henry Princes’ passionate evangelical preaching proved irresistibly attractive to the wealthy and the gullible - particularly wealthy, gullible women, many of whom were, rather conveniently, recently widowed. In 1849, Prince and his followers - and their money - moved to the village of Spaxton, in Somerset, where they purchased a 200-acre plot of land and set about creating what was intended to be a self-supporting community of some 60 disciples. All of them were dedicated to the sect's eccentric views on marriage, the messiah, immortality and the sect leader's 'unconventional' views on the role of women, or as he referred to them, his specially chosen spiritual 'brides', in the newly established order.

The Agepomonite community prospered, so much so that they were able to fund the construction of a church in Clapton, then just a small hamlet, while their spiritual leader wrestled with the demands of his many brides. In 1899 however, seven years after they had built the church, the unthinkable happened and their supposedly immortal leader Prince died, and like the rest of the Agapemonites, he was buried standing up, in readiness for the resurrection.

Suddenly the Agapemonites were presented with a slight problem - another ‘messiah’ was urgently required - enter John Hugh Smyth-Pigott, who seemed to fit the bill perfectly - a charming, feckless womaniser, he travelled from Dublin to the Clapton church, situated on the corner of Rookwood Road and Clapton Common, to announce to an astonished and largely unprepared world that he was the new messiah.... 'God not man' he brazenly declared....      and in the ensuing riots, unable to provide proof of his claim that he could walk across Clapton Pond, he swiftly left Hackney, travelling to the altogether less hostile environs of Somerset, where he set about ‘modernising' the order. He committed himself to an even more vigorous and demanding succession of 'brides' than had his predecessor: seven a week, according to one report. What his longsuffering wife, Catherine, thought of this arrangement is not known. After one particularly careless 'bride' produced three children bravely named Glory, Power and Life, Smyth-Pigott was finally defrocked by the Anglican church and rather regrettably for an immortal, shuffled off this mortal coil in March 1927.
To have lost not just one immortal messiah, but two, in succession, was too much for the now slightly suspicious surviving community, which fell into decline and eventually disbanded.

The church itself is a fabulously unusual building, with some bizarre gargoyles, such as the lion and the cow, standing on, or above what appears to be human figures, and the winged statues of an eagle, a man, and a lion, and one other that was not visible, on each corner of the belfry. Made in Bronze, the blue substrate can be seen trickling down the stonework, discolouring the masonry below.

The Agapemonite Church in Clapton, was abandoned by the sect in the 1920s, and was eventually acquired by the Ancient Catholic Church in 1956. To this day it stands as an architectural footnote to one of the more bizarre English cults of recent years, and to two of the greatest religious charlatans of the last 150 years.

Original article by: Anne Beech
N16 magazine

To read a different version of the story from the Upper Clapton website including some interesting links to other historical sites, click here.

For a more accademic encyclopedia article on the Agapemonites click here.

Further reading on the Agapemonites
Our civilisation website
World religions website - adherents.com

This Page was last update: Friday, July 11, 2003 at 5:13:37 AM
This page was originally posted: 7/4/2003; 4:35:00 PM.
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Neighbourhood Action Group

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