Louisa Nottidge

Childhood

Louisa Jane Nottidge was born at her grandmother's house, Fulling Mill House, Bocking, Essex, in 1802. Her parents, Josias Nottidge (1762–1844) and Emily Pepys (1775–1863) were wealthy wool clothiers who worked fulling mills in Bradford Street, Bocking and in Wixoe, Suffolk. From 1794 her parents lived at a large house, with an eight-acre estate, called Rose Hill (Floriston Hall) in Wixoe, Suffolk. Louisa reported that from her early youth her reading had been directed mainly towards religious texts. She attended church regularly, with her six sisters and four brothers.

The Agapemone

In 1843 a revivalist clergyman, Rev. Henry James Prince, preached at the church of Stoke, near Wixoe. On the death of Josias Nottidge in 1844, the five unmarried sisters each inherited the sum of £6,000. Mr Prince persuaded them to contribute to the founding of a religious community in Somerset, to be called The Agapemone, or Abode of Love. In 1845 the sisters travelled to Somerset with a view to residing at the new community; en route Mr Prince persuaded three of the sisters - Harriet, Agnes and Clara - to marry three clergymen from the Agapemone. They were married in Swansea, on the same day, in 1845.

Abduction

Mr Prince then encouraged Louisa to join her sisters at The Agapemone. After Louisa had travelled to Somerset, her mother Emily feared the spiritual and financial influence that Prince had established over her daughters. Emily instructed her son Edmund, her nephew Edward Nottidge, and her son-in-law, Frederick Ripley, to travel down to Somerset and to rescue her unmarried daughter, Louisa. The three men succeeded in removing Louisa against her will in November 1846, and imprisoned her in Ripley's villa by Regents Park (12 Woburn Place). Following Louisa's persistent claims regarding the divinity of Mr Prince, her mother enlisted medical aid and had Louisa certified insane, and then placed her in Moorcroft House Asylum, Hillingdon. Dr. Stilwell, the presiding physician, made notes on Louisa's condition and treatment, recorded in The Lancet.

Escape

Louisa escaped from the asylum in January 1848, travelling across London to meet Mr Cobbe from The Agapemone at a hotel in Cavendish Square, but was recaptured two days later at Paddington Station. Mr Cobbe alerted the Commissioners in Lunacy, whose report by Bryan Procter led to her release in May 1848.

Nottidge v Ripley and Another (1849)

Louisa then sued her brother, cousin and brother-in-law, Ripley, for abduction and false imprisonment in Nottidge v. Ripley and Another (1849); the trial was reported daily in The Times newspaper. Bryan Procter was called as a professional medical witness. The Lord Chief Baron stated his famous dictum that, "You ought to liberate every person who is not dangerous to himself or to others." Louisa won the case with damages, proving that she had been illegally detained. Louisa then returned to The Agapemone, transferring her wealth to Mr Prince, and remained there until her death in 1858.

In 1850 Charles Dickens reported on the case of Louisa Nottidge and The Agapemone.

Nottidge v Prince (1860)

In 1860 Louisa's brother and executor, Ralph Nottidge, sued Mr Prince to recoup the money that Louisa had given him as a result of his undue influence over her, in the case of Nottidge v. Prince (1860), reported daily in The Times newspaper. The Nottidges won the case, with costs. Punch Magazine then launched a campaign to encourage Prince to emigrate to America, to join Brigham Young and his Mormons in the Utah desert.

Harriet Martineau wrote, in her biography of Bryan Procter, the following:

"For many years Mr Procter held the lucrative but not very congenial appointment of Commissioner of Lunacy; the responsibility of which was irksome, and occasionally (as in the case of Miss Nottidge, who was carried off from The Agapemone) alarming to a man of sensitive nature, and a hater of conflict."

Wilkie Collins dedicated his novel The Woman In White to Bryan Procter, poet and Commissioner for Lunacy.