25 Years Ago: The Panacea Society Sale
17th to 27th July 2001 Five Day Auction
In July 2001 on the lawns of the Panacea Society headquarters a five day sale was held of furniture, textiles, paintings, silverware, and other items left by deceased members of the Panacea Society. The auctioneers were W&H Peacock.
The sale followed months of discussions between the Society and the Charity Commission. The funds from the sale were used to support the charitable aims of the Society – providing grant in aid awards for the relief of poverty and sickness to people living in and around Bedford.
A room in Castleside, set out for the auction in 2001
The Panacea Society was established in 1919 by a group of women lead by Mabel Barltrop (known to her followers as Octavia). The group attracted new members quickly and by 1926 had registered with the Charity Commissioners as The Panacea Society. Members of the Society were followers of Joanna Southcott an earlier English prophet and came to believe their garden was the Garden of Eden, that Octavia was the Daughter of God, and that the Second Coming of Jesus was imminent. They also believed that they had found the ‘Panacea for all ills’, through the breathe of Octavia and developed their Healing Ministry. By 1939 there were over 3000 members. The Healing was available worldwide, with 132,000 enquiries received from over 100 countries, it was always offered free of charge.
By 2001 the Charity Commission was taking a particular interest in the Society, it’s accumulated wealth (from gifts, bequests and tithes paid by members) and took a secular view of the charity’s activities. The Charity’s assets had to be utilised beyond preparations for the return of Jesus. This included identifying the items collected and stored by the Society that could be sold. Items that had belonged to Octavia and other key members of the Society, along with Southcott relics were not included and continued to be kept and cared for. The sale attracted national attention and over several days in July 2001 many of the more marketable chattels of the Society were sold.
Looking back, the sale was a pivotal moment for the Society. Non-members were allowed into the garden and could see the conspicuous wealth of the upper middle class members, many of whom were born in the mid-19th century and called themselves ‘Victorians’. It was also a difficult time for the remaining members, who with sincere and deep faith were sure of their continuing role to prepare for the return of Jesus. The Panacea Museum, which opened in 2012, would have looked very different had the sale not taken place; the items on display in the museum now reflect the best of what didn’t sell and it affects how we see the Society. The sheer scale of their wealth and accumulation of possessions and the absolute certainty that these items would be needed again is less visible. It also offers opportunities, to focus on known individual members where their belongings were identified and therefore kept, and to see the less well-off believers – the domestic servants who cared for both the members and the houses – through the ordinary kitchen and household items which were not of interest for the sale. Many of the artefacts on display invoke an emotional response and recognition of the day to day, eliciting “Granny had one of those!”. And as generations pass, the museum has another role not just to tell the stories of the Panacea Society, it also has an exceptional collection of daily life from the first half of the twentieth century which is now passing out of living memory.
The Panacea Museum is interested in finding out what happened to the items sold; do the current owners know they looking after a part of a particular and quintessentially English slice of history? We were recently gifted back, by a very generous visitor, two chess sets they had acquired at the sale. We plan to put these on display later in the year.
One of the chess sets recently given back to us
There are many other items we would love to see again; the painting that used to hang in the Dining Room in The Haven (now the Museum’s welcome room) or the 1910 evening dress, the 1920s camera, the music box (we could go on).
The painting which hung in The Haven, sold in 2001
If you would like to get in touch we’d love to hear from you: email museum@panaceatrust.org or phone 01234 353178. Further details about the Museum including opening times and special events are here www.panaceamuseum.org
