A remarkable print illustrating the public furore surrounding the “pregnancy” of Joanna Southcott who claimed to be carrying Shiloh, a divine prophet, despite Southcott freely admitting to being a virgin and sixty-four years old. The story caused an explosion of public ridicule and debate played out across popular prints such as the present example. Southcott died three months after this print was published and her body was examined by numerous medical professionals who concluded that the foetus did not exist.
Joanna Southcott (1750-1814) began to have visions in 1792 when she was forty-two years old and claimed to be able to predict food shortages and imminent wars. Southcott published many of her predictions (she is shown in the present print holding a book titled The Prophecy of Johanne Southcott) and quickly became a famous and controversial figure. Southcott moved from rural Devon to London where she attracted many followers to her so-called Southcottian movement.
In this print a pregnant Southcott is showing riding on the back of a dog outside Bethlem psychiatric hospital in London. Southcott is being accosted by a furious street preacher who accuses her of lying and calls her a “blasphemous old hag”, another figure, thought to be the physician John Sims announces his belief that the pregnancy is in fact “a cancer” (he holds a sack of obstetric instruments), while another gentleman (thought to be the physician Richard Reece states, “I’ll pledge my reputation on her being so.”
“Between 1801 and 1814, Southcott published some sixty-five pamphlets, totalling almost 5000 pages; moreover, her unpublished manuscripts amount to twice the number of pages in print. By one conservative estimate, a total of 108,000 copies of her various works were published and circulated from 1801 to 1816, making her one of the most popular writers of her time. **One reason for the immediate appeal of her texts is their unique mix of apocalyptic optimism with down-to-earth narratives about everyday life, which she converts to spiritual account. Particularly vivid are her narratives of what it was like to be an unmarried maidservant negotiating the sexual politics of a household.”** (ODNB).
In 1814 Southcott claimed that she was pregnant with Shiloh, the female divine figure that she had always claimed would come to bring about great change.
“Public incredulity reached new heights in April of that year when it was rumoured that a number of physicians were being called in to examine Southcott’s body, which was said to be showing signs of pregnancy, although, as she freely admitted to her doctors, she was a virgin and sixty-four years old. In fact, for believers, the very absurdity of the situation seemed to confirm its miraculous potential.” (ODNB)
Southcott died on 27th December 1814 and an autopsy confirmed that no foetus was present but, as Sylvia Bowerbank states in the ODNB “her body continued to be the site of conflicting and confusing interpretations” with various doctors attempting to account for her enlarged stomach (which is caricatured so clearly in this print). To Southcott’s believers, the foetus Shiloh had simply disappeared.
