Page 30 • The HERALD • 13th July 2023 v THE HERALD - YOUR COMMUNITY MAGAZINE v All aspects of Plastering & General Decorating Covered Free Quotations Fully Insured Mobile 07941 255335 Phone: 023 8089 8324 parkesij@yahoo.co.uk www.ijs4plastering.co.uk All General Plumbing • Boiler Installations • Boiler Breakdowns • Gas Appliance Servicing • Central Heating Repairs 023 8089 9300 07917 445369 petertarr1@hotmail.co.uk Reg: 3515993 PETERTARR Gas, Plumbing & Heating ELECTRICIAN/HANDYMAN FULLY QUALIFIED ELECTRICIAN (30YRS EXPERIENCE) • Mains Upgrades • Testing • Extra/Replacement Points/Lights • Outside Lighting • Sockets • Ponds • BT/TV Points • Ethernet Points • CCTV • Fire/Intruder Alarms • Basic Plumbing Repairs • Outside Taps • Showers • Heating Problems • Blinds/Poles Fixed • Flatpacks • Loft Work Boarding, Tidying etc ALL OTHER DOMESTIC WORK CONSIDERED Call Mick on 07738 166453 or email: michaelshelley80@googlemail.com AUSTIN WINDOW CLEANING Professional Window Cleaning Service established 25 years From £18 per house Tel: 07733 205341 www.austinwindowcleaning.co.uk with their furniture stretching for half a mile up the road. e motley crew camped at the roadside for two days, where it was reported that an infant died of exposure. Many of the Shakers lost belief in Girling, and consequently returned to their original homes, but some did continue to keep faith in her. A er a few weeks, the remaining Shakers were o ered the use of a barn in Lymington, but it was on the proviso they were to ‘prevent any dances without clothes taking place among any of the brothers, sisters or children’. Once again, they were evicted and had to leave the barn, but eventually found a more permanent place near Hordle in which to set-up camp. ey would remain here for the next decade, living in wooden huts with canvas roofs. e camp became a tourist attraction, with curious people coming from far and wide to see the wild jumping and worship. However, despite Girling telling a newspaper that she was the “second appearing of Jesus, the Christ of God, the bride, the lamb’s wife, the Godmother and saviour, life from heaven, and there will not be another”, she fell ill with cancer in 1886. At the point of her illness, the community of Shakers living under Girling’s control had fallen to just twenty disciples. She died later that year in September 1886. ose still faithful to her waited three days and nights by her grave in Hordle churchyard for her to rise from the dead. e resurrection never came, and the handful of Shakers that were le behind, quietly disbanded. You might think this would be the last that would be heard of Mary Ann Girling and the New Forest Shakers. But not so… In Michael O’Leary’s book, ‘Hampshire and Isle of Wight Folk Tales’, he recounts how in the 1990s, a group of teenagers robbed a service station, stashing the stolen cash in Hordle churchyard to retrieve later. O’Leary described the moment when the leader of the gang returned to retrieve the loot: “He saw something terrible at the churchyard gates. There was the tall, gaunt, angular figure of a woman, wearing a long, black Victorian dress and a large, black bonnet. She was jumping up and down, up, and down. The young man panicked and fled blindly in the opposite direction, but every time he looked behind him there she was, always the same distance away, always jumping, up and down.” e next morning the teenager was tracked down by the police and arrested. ey found him “crouching in a foetal position, rocking backwards and forwards, laughing and crying at the same time.” were unable to pay for any support or outside sustenance. As you might have guessed, this to call themselves the ‘Children of God’. ousands of onlookers would come and watch, considering the display a great entertainment. But not all those who witnessed Girling’s sermons were amused. In 1872, the group was attacked by hostile onlookers, leading Girling to announce to her followers that they were to move to Hordle in the New Forest. Along with her disciples, Girling ‘upped sticks’ and made the journey towards the coast, arriving at a large property in Vaggs Lane. e move was partly nanced by one of her followers, but also meant taking on a substantial mortgage. It’s this mortgage debt which would eventually lead to the demise of the group, now known locally as the ‘Shakers’ due to their erratic dancing style. Before those nancial problems became apparent, the Shakers grew to one hundred and sixty people, all of whom believed in Girling’s claims of being a deity, calling her ‘mother’. She had an incredible hold over her followers, convincing them they would live forever, and she would one day rule over a peaceful world. Her force of will and personality meant they obeyed her commands which included abstaining from sexual activity or earning any money. e group had to survive by cultivating vegetables (which they could not sell), and would go hungry and cold, as Marc hosts monthly local history talks, visit: nfhwa.org/events for details. I don’t think many would disagree that a cult can be de ned as a small religious group that is bound together by a shared commitment to a charismatic leader, the members of which will o en live outside the norms of society. Based on this de nition, the New Forest ‘Shakers’, also known as the ‘Walworth Jumpers’ or the ‘Children of God’ can be described as such. e Shaker cult arrived in Hampshire in January 1872, but by 1886 had completely disappeared, leaving a bizarre and sad tale in their wake. e strange story starts in London on Christmas Day 1858, when thirty one year old Mary Ann Girling professed to have had a vision of Jesus Christ. is vision would evolve over time into her claiming to be the ‘Second Coming’. For those that believed her, this was evidenced by blood appearing on her hands and feet, known as stigmata. By 1870 she had a small following who would listen to her unique style of preaching at a railway arch in Walworth Road, London. is involved her screaming whilst gesticulating wildly and ailing her arms. e performance was accompanied with lots of jumping up and down, which her followers would then imitate. Girling was dubbed ‘the high priestess of Jumperism’ by one eyewitness, hence the name ‘Walworth Jumpers’, although her followers preferred The Strange Tale of the New Forest Shakers, a 19th Century Cult by Marc Heighway, mheighway@hotmail.com inability to earn money meant the mortgage in Hordle wasn’t getting paid. As a result, on a cold winter’s night in December 1874, Girling and the Shakers were evicted from the Vaggs Lane property. In Jo Ivey’s ‘New Forest Traditions’ she wrote how sixty women, thirty ve men, and forty ve children trudged into the sleet and snow, Vaggs Lane eviction Mary Ann Girling
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