Abstract

This article examines the psychological implications of Quaker membership, corporate identity and disownment in late Georgian England through analysis of the life and writings of Dorothy Gott (1748/9–1812), a curious ex-Quaker prophet who published three pamphlets of apocalyptic warning about the second coming of Christ at the turn of the eighteenth century. Through recovery research and analysis of her publications, it retrieves the story of her Quaker upbringing, disownment for exogamous marriage, subsequent attempts to gain readmission into the Religious Society of Friends, and calls to her contemporaries to return to the primitive Christianity of early Friends. It investigates the impact of her Quaker religious upbringing on her visionary prophetic emergence and writing; particularly her employment, and privileging, of religious practices and beliefs associated with early Friends, such as the enactment of corporeal prophetic signs and assertion that Christ’s second coming would be within the heart rather than in person.

Keywords: second coming, signs, disownment, Dorothy Gott, prophecy

How to Cite:

Cho, N., (2013) “Dorothy Gott (C. 1748–1812) and ‘God’s Chosen People’: A Disowned Prophet’s Quest for Quaker Recognition in Late Georgian England^*”, Quaker Studies Test 18(1), 50–75. doi: https://doi.org/10.3828/quaker.18.1.50