The Southcott Collection consists of a large collection of printed and manuscript sources on all of the nineteenth-century prophetic movements founded by Brothers, Southcott, and others who claimed to be Southcott's successor.
The archive includes many original and later editions of the published prophecies of Southcottian figures, some extremely rare. In addition, bound collections of pamphlets, loose broadsides and other printed ephemera survive from various periods of the nineteenth century. An extensive collection of manuscript notebooks of Southcott's unpublished prophecies, collated by nineteenth-century followers, contains unique material. Large manuscript letter collections, predominantly relating to Southcottian groups post-1815, are also filed. The archive includes all sixteen volumes of the published Works of Zion Ward.
This archive has accumulated in Bedford as a result of members of the Panacea Society donating their own family collections of Southcottian material; the Panacea Society's own acquisition of letter collections including other materials from fellow Southcottians; and the Trust's more recent purchase of Southcottian archives sold at auction.
This material complements Southcottian collections in the British Library, Princeton University Library and the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin.