The New International Encyclopædia/Southcott, Joanna

SOUTH′COTT, Joanna (1750-1814). A religious visionary, born at Gittisham, in Devonshire, England, of humble parentage. In youth she was a domestic servant, chiefly in Exeter. In 1792 she declared herself to be the woman driven into the wilderness, the subject of the prophecy in Rev. xii., and began to claim the gift of prophecy. She gave forth predictions in prose and verse, and, although very illiterate, wrote numerous letters and pamphlets. When over sixty years of age she imagined that she was destined to give birth miraculously to a second Shiloh or prince of peace. Her writings include The Strange Effects of Faith (1801), with continuations (1802-20); books of Prophecies and Visions (1803); Letters (1804); The True Explanation of the Bible (1804-10); the Book of Wonders (1813-14). Consult her Memoirs (London, 1814).