Mr Wroe's Virgins

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In the end I had to narrow it down to four stories, with each of my four women pursuing a different desire. And in the years it took me to research and write the book, life intruded to alter and colour it – most significantly in the sudden illness and death of my father. My loss became Hannah’s loss, and her grief gave me the key to her character. Though there are many tragic aspects to the story, and the characters are undeniably isolated, the moments when we came together as a company to discuss and film sections (with cameras, desk lamps, ring lights and candles) were strangely convivial. It is a testament to the four actors, who filmed (often alone) in graveyards, fields, basements, beaches, hilltops and a succession of bedroom corners, in attempt not to betray our time scale, as well as the skills of our amazing editor Mat Ort, that the endeavour became uniquely pleasurable and satisfying.

Period drama serial Mr Wroe’s Virgins was set in the 19th century when a preacher, John Wroe (Jonathan Pryce), arrives in a northern industrial town, where the locals put him up in a house and give him four virgins to provide him with ‘comfort and succour’ each of the episodes focused on a different one of the virgins. The Christian Israelite Church was originally set up in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire and from 1822 to 1831 the town was the church's headquarters. In the 1820s the church trustees wanted to turn Ashton-under-Lyne into a "new Jerusalem". They intended to build a wall around the town with four gateways, and although the wall was never constructed, the four gatehouses were, as was a printing press. These plans failed when the Trustees were replaced and the church headquarters moved to Gravesend in Kent in the 1830s. Popular opinion in Ashton turned against Wroe when, in 1831, he was accused of indecent behaviour, but the charges were dismissed. The church spread to Australia, where it is still active. [3] [4] Wroe was born, on 19 September 1782, in the village of East Bowling, near Bradford, West Yorkshire to a worsted manufacturer and farmer, and baptised in the town. [1] After a rather scanty education, he entered his father's business, but later took a farm. He married and brought up a family of seven children. [ citation needed] Mr Wroe is a self proclaimed prophet who leads a church of Christian Israelites in Ashton near Manchester and has managed to persuade the local population that the world will end and only by following him can they go to heaven when the world ends; which is imminent. To show their devotion they build him a temple called the Sanctuary and it is big and needs manpower for cooking and cleaning hence his requirement for seven virgins, not as sexual partners but as housemaids.

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But that’s all turned on it’s head eventually and it’s a wonder of did he? Did she? Who’s telling the truth? With impeccable research into the era and the life of John Wroe, Jane Rogers delivers “a compelling story of astonishing depth, elucidating religious idealism, the beginnings of socialism and the ubiquitous position of women as unpaid laborers” ( Publishers Weekly, starred review). So I considered a historical setting. And then lots of ideas ran together, as they do when a novel is conceived. I was living in an old mill town, surrounded by relics of the industrial revolution and the evangelical, social and educational movements that sprang up in response to it; a crucible for new heavens and new earths. Prophet Wroe’s Christian Israelite church was four miles down the road, in Ashton-Under-Lyne (which he had identified as the New Jerusalem). And his congregation had given him seven virgins “for comfort and succour”. No one had ever told their story. The story is told through four of these virgins. One is a religious zealot who became an annoying read as she was both manipulative and easily manipulated, it is easy to see how unscrupulous people could get this type of person to commit atrocities in the name of God. Yet another had been brutalised as a girl and her story is well written, you become witness to her evolving use of English as she recounts her story. The two others are the main players. Writer Colin Wilson describes Fort as "a patron of cranks" and also argues that running through Fort's work is "the feeling that no matter how honest scientists think they are, they are still influenced by various unconscious assumptions that prevent them from attaining true objectivity. Expressed in a sentence, Fort's principle goes something like this: People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels."

When God told Prophet John Wroe to comfort himself with seven virgins, his congregation gave him its daughters. So begins this provocative and immensely powerful novel, set in nineteenth-century England and based on actual events. It’s an interesting premise, based around the real-life figure of John Wroe, a charismatic self-proclaimed prophet and leader of a religious sect known as the Christian Israelite Church which he established in the north of England in the 1830s. Wroe was eventually discredited and fled to Australia, but before that time he requested that seven virgins be allotted to his service. Nothing about these women is recorded apart from their existence, no names, no personal history, leaving a blank canvas upon which author Jane Rogers takes the opportunity to write stories for them, as she mentions in the Historical Note at the end of the text. Mr Wroe’s Virgins is based on a true story. The original Mr Wroe was born in Bradford in 1782. During an illness he had a vision in which he was instructed to convert to Judaism. Instead he joined the Apocalyptic Southcottian Church. He styled himself and his congregation as Christian Israelites. His followers called him a ‘prophet’. In 1822 he received a ‘message’ that Ashton (in Lancashire) was to become the New Jerusalem. Later, in 1830 he received a further message, that God wanted his followers to provide Mr Wroe with seven virgins ‘for comfort and succour’. They did. Nothing is known about these seven women. With this book Rogers tells their story.Popular opinion turned against Wroe when he was accused of indecent behaviour in 1831 and he fled to Australia where he continued his evangelical work. Looking at this story in 2020, one cannot escape the resonances with the Weinstein era scandals that hover over its characters and situation.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact. There is nothing documented about the women, so Rogers creates entirely fictitious characters. For her seven, Rogers chooses: a cripple, a badly beaten mute, two under-age sisters who can barely read, a virtuous saint, a girl donated by her aunt and uncle who does not belong to the congregation and doesn’t believe, and a girl with an illegitimate son. A nineteenth century prophet claims seven young women for his own in this “engaging, serious and gleefully ironic novel” based on true events ( The New York Times Book Review).Wroe died in Melbourne, Australia, in 1863, aged 81, leaving the church affairs in the hands of his trustees. I remember watching a television adaptation of this book some years ago, with the excellent Jonathan Pryce and a stunning performance from Kathy Burke. It was only when I tried to find that series on DVD that I realised it came from a book and, as the series hasn’t been released, I decided to read the book. Rogers chooses four of the ‘sisters’ (as they are known in the household) to tell the story. As with Darwin’s The Mathematics of Love, the characterisations and voices are so cleverly written that it is easy to tell whose story you are in. No sign posting is required. Martha (the mute) is a particularly interesting character. When we begin to focus on her she is unable to construct sentences. It is wonderful to watch her progression from ���savage’, as she is described by her sisters, into a ‘full’ person. At the start Martha’s focus is directed purely on where she will get her next meal. She doesn’t trust the others or Mr Wroe. She then begins to think and value herself. We watch her transform and by the end she probably acts the most sensibly out of all the sisters. I knew what I wanted to write about next; that perennial question which has never been better put than by Chaucer: “What thing is it that wommen most desyren? ” My own instincts told me that if set in the present, such a book would be all too easily placed in the 'women’s ghetto' Wroe’s life was the basis of a novel, Mr Wroe's Virgins by Jane Rogers. [5] In 1993 Jonathan Pryce featured as Wroe, alongside Kathy Burke and Minnie Driver, in a BBC mini-series adaptation of the novel directed by Danny Boyle. [6]

John Wroe (19 September 1782 – 5 February 1863) was a British evangelist who founded the Christian Israelite Church in the 1820s after having what he believed were a series of visions.Jane Rogers chronicles the nine months these women spend together until accusations of indecency and the trial that follows bring Wroe's household to its dramatic end. There is a cripple, a badly beaten mute, two underage sisters who can barely read, Joanna "the Saint," Hannah the unbeliever, and Leah, who secretly mothered an illegitimate child. And then there is Prophet Wroe, as enigmatic and attractive to each of the virgins as he is an iron hand. With an impeccably crafted narrative and utterly beguiling prose, Rogers delves deep into the conflicts surrounding faith, love, and passion. Ultimately each of the virgins comes away with a powerful lesson in independence. Wroe, although often persecuted and threatened, travelled throughout Europe including Gibraltar, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Scotland, and Wales. He later travelled to the United States, and Australia. [2]