In 1875 James White, a soldier based at Chatham in Kent, joined a Southcottian sect of Christian Israelites.He experienced a mystical revelation and, believing he was the Messenger of the Lord, produced a manuscript which he called the Flying Roll and which he claimed set out a divine message.He then changed his name to James Hersham Jazreel, and started to build a large tower on Chatham Hill in Kent.
The tower was to be the headquarters of the New and Latter House of Israel, as the sect now called itself.It would contain an assembly hall, shops - including a bakery, a tea merchant's, a greengrocer’s, a carpenter’s, a dairy, a jeweller's, a cobbler's, a printing firm and a smithy, as well as a row of houses.The cost of the tower was estimated at £30,000, and contributions poured in from the Jezreelite followers.
Jezreel insisted his followers abstain from drink, but it was a rule that did not apply to the leader, who often appeared to be drunk, and in fact died as a result of alcoholism in 1885.
The same year his wife Clarissa took the name Queen Esther and the building work commenced. As the building soared so too did the costs and to save money within the community, which had reached 1,400 people at its peak, the Queen declared that everyone would become vegetarian.This meant a diet of bread and potatoes, and helped to conserve the community’s dwindling resources.
Before the building was finished Queen Esther died in 1888.A successor Michael Keyfor Mills came from Detroit and some work continued, but the dwindling sect of Jezreelites abandoned the site in 1905.
Sources
W H G Armytage, Heavens Below: Utopian Experiments in England 1560-1960, 1961.
