John Wilson (historian)

John Wilson (8 June 1799, Kilmarnock district, Scotland – 22 January 1870, Brighton, England [1]) was one of the ideological architects of the British Israelite movement,[2]:6-9 along with Edward Wheler Bird and Edward Hine.[3]

Wilson was a self educated man.[4]:33 In 1840, he published Our Israelitish Origin, a book of his lectures, in which he claimed that the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel had made their way from the Near East, across the continent of Europe, to the British Isles.[2]:7 He believed the Northern European people to be descended from the Ten Lost Tribes, with the people of Britain being the Tribe of Ephraim.[5]:211 Wilson relied on philological "evidence" of English, Scottish, and Irish words that were similar to Hebrew words, even though he lacked formal training in language or seminary.[4]:33

His lectures attracted the attention of, among others, Charles Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal for Scotland and one of the first Pyramidologists.

It was in Wilson's house in St Pancras, London, that the Anglo-Israel Association was founded in 1874.[6]

On the death of Wilson's daughter in 1904, his manuscripts passed into the possession of Rev. A. B. Grimaldi.[7]

References
  1. Reported as being "in his 70th year" by The Brighton Times on 29 January 1870; see Boase, F., Modern English biography, 6 vols, 1892-1921
  2. Michael Barkun (1997). Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807846384.
  3. David S. Katz (2001). Bernardini, Paolo; Fiering, Norman (eds.). The Jews and the Expansion of Europe to the West, 1450 to 1800. Berghahn. p. 113-=114. ISBN 978-1571814302.
  4. Quarles, Chester L. (2004). Christian Identity: The Aryan American Bloodline Religion. McFarland & Co. ISBN 978-0-78641892-3.
  5. Kidd, Colin (2006). The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000 (1. publ. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521797290.
  6. Anglo-Saxon Federation of America (1949). "?". Destiny Quarterly Review. Destiny Publishers.
  7. A. B. G., 'John Wilson MSS', Notes and Queries s11-I: 24 (1910), p. 464
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.