Leonard Bentley
Piccadilly Circus: 1932
This is a Walter Scott of Bradford postcard showing Piccadilly Circus looking east towards Coventry Street. It is June or July 1932 and Harry Roy and his orchestra are the house band at the London Pavilion during its Non-Stop Variety period. There are two advertising signs on the corner of Coventry Street and Haymarket, one I recognise from my early years. The Panacea Society paid for advertisements in national newspapers right up to the end of the 20th Century with always the same message, “Crime and Banditry, Distress and Perplexity will increase in England until the Bishops open Joanna Southcott’s Box.” In this case the message was on a billboard in June and July 1932. The society was one of the Millenarian movements which came about at the time of the Great War, it was founded in 1915 by four middle class English women who followed the teaching of the 18th Century prophetess, Joanna Southcott. The leader of the group was Mabel Barltrop who later took the name “Octavia, the Divine daughter of God”. The ladies bought properties in Bedford close to each other centred on Albany Road. At its height during the early 1930s there were about fifty members living in Bedford and another two thousand members worldwide. As well as demanding that Joanna Southcott’s box of prophecies be opened so that all the world’s troubles would be overcome, they were also a healing ministry. This took the form of a small linen square which had been breathed on by Octavia’s divine breath, it would then be placed in a glass of tap water and the concoction was drunk, during its active years 130,000 linen squares were sent to people in ninety countries. With the death of its last Bedford resident in 2012, it ceased to be a healing ministry and changed its name to the Panacea Charitable Trust which curates a museum at 12 Albany Street. In 1927 in an attempt to debunk the society, the Bishop of Grantham opened a box at Westminster House and it was found to contain amongst other things, a pistol, dice, books and Joanna Southcott’s lace cap. In subsequent advertisements by the Panacea Society, a codicil was added to the effect that the box opened in July 1927 was not Joanna Southcott’s Box. The other advertisement is for “Pratt’s High Test” Summer Grade Petrol, Pratt’s was owned by Anglo American Oil and had over 20,000 pumps throughout the UK in 1932. Oil companies still produce a summer and winter grade of petrol but it is no longer a selling point, or so it seems. In 1935 Anglo American changed the name from Pratt’s to Esso.
Piccadilly Circus: 1932
This is a Walter Scott of Bradford postcard showing Piccadilly Circus looking east towards Coventry Street. It is June or July 1932 and Harry Roy and his orchestra are the house band at the London Pavilion during its Non-Stop Variety period. There are two advertising signs on the corner of Coventry Street and Haymarket, one I recognise from my early years. The Panacea Society paid for advertisements in national newspapers right up to the end of the 20th Century with always the same message, “Crime and Banditry, Distress and Perplexity will increase in England until the Bishops open Joanna Southcott’s Box.” In this case the message was on a billboard in June and July 1932. The society was one of the Millenarian movements which came about at the time of the Great War, it was founded in 1915 by four middle class English women who followed the teaching of the 18th Century prophetess, Joanna Southcott. The leader of the group was Mabel Barltrop who later took the name “Octavia, the Divine daughter of God”. The ladies bought properties in Bedford close to each other centred on Albany Road. At its height during the early 1930s there were about fifty members living in Bedford and another two thousand members worldwide. As well as demanding that Joanna Southcott’s box of prophecies be opened so that all the world’s troubles would be overcome, they were also a healing ministry. This took the form of a small linen square which had been breathed on by Octavia’s divine breath, it would then be placed in a glass of tap water and the concoction was drunk, during its active years 130,000 linen squares were sent to people in ninety countries. With the death of its last Bedford resident in 2012, it ceased to be a healing ministry and changed its name to the Panacea Charitable Trust which curates a museum at 12 Albany Street. In 1927 in an attempt to debunk the society, the Bishop of Grantham opened a box at Westminster House and it was found to contain amongst other things, a pistol, dice, books and Joanna Southcott’s lace cap. In subsequent advertisements by the Panacea Society, a codicil was added to the effect that the box opened in July 1927 was not Joanna Southcott’s Box. The other advertisement is for “Pratt’s High Test” Summer Grade Petrol, Pratt’s was owned by Anglo American Oil and had over 20,000 pumps throughout the UK in 1932. Oil companies still produce a summer and winter grade of petrol but it is no longer a selling point, or so it seems. In 1935 Anglo American changed the name from Pratt’s to Esso.