Mary Ann Girling was the wife of an iron-founder and machine-fitter at Ipswich, with two children.One Christmas day she received the stigmata in the hands, feet and side.Subsequently she left her family, declaring that she was the new Messiah, and asserting that she could not die.
She was invited to London by a group known as the Plumstead Peculiars, and then founded a mission in Battersea where her followers kissed each other and danced in circles until they fell unconscious.They were known as the Jumpers of Walworth and crowds of up to 3,000 people gathered to watch the display.
In 1872 Mrs Girling, by then known simply as ‘Mother’, set up a community in the New Forest at Hordle.Quickly it grew to 160 persons, all sworn to celibacy.Clothes and shoes were made in the community and a special bloomer costume was worn by women when working on the farm.They became known as Convolutionists and were popularly confused with Shakers, as a consequence of their ecstatic form of worship in which they danced and fell into trances and fits.
In 1875 the community ran into financial problems and was evicted.Two or three pianos, seventy seven beds, and bedding and farm implements were all placed on the high road.There was a fierce east wind blowing with sleet and snow, and the community (largely made up of women and children) prayed in the road until 9 o’clock that night, when they finally obtained the shelter of a barn.
After living on the road for several weeks, they rented a small farm in Tiptoe where they erected tents and huts, and there they survived until 1886 when Mother, who could not die, did in fact pass away.
Sources
W H G Armytage, Heavens Below: Utopian Experiments in England 1560-1960, 1961, pp 281-284.
Philip Hoare, England’s Lost Eden: Adventures in a Victorian Utopia, 2005.
