Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00998)

For those who may be interested in Wedgwood, the following is a brief
summary (!) of biographical material from my draft history of the Liberal
Catholic Church.

James Ingall Wedgwood was London on May 24, 1883, in London. He was a
member of the eminent family of potters. The history of the family can be
found in Barbara and Hensleigh Wedgwood: The Wedgwood Circle 1730-1897
Studio Vista, London,1980, in which Wedgwood is mentioned briefly. He was
the son of Alfred Wedgwood (1842-1892) and Margaret Rosena Ingall
(1854-1922), daughter of Richard Ingall, who had been a civil engineer of
Valparaiso, Chile. Alfred and Rosena had married in 1873, without the
approval of his parents. Wedgwood was the great, great grandson of the
potter Josiah Wedgwood, the grandson of the spiritualist Hensleigh
Wedgwood (1803-1891) and the great nephew of Charles Darwin (1809-1882).

After leaving school he studied chemistry at University College,
Nottingham, and was for a time employed as an analytical chemist in York,
where he lodged with the Reverend Patrick John Shaw, the Rector of All
Saints Church, North Street.  He also studied music at the Nottingham
College of Music and at St Albans, Nottingham under Dr Beckett Gibbs. He
then spent four years as an articled pupil at York Minister under Dr
Tertius Noble (1867-1953).   Wedgwood also felt he had a vocation to the
priesthood of the Anglican Church, and began theological studies whilst
staying with Patrick Shaw despite the opposition of the Wedgwood family.

In 1904 Wedgwood attended two lectures by Mrs Besant. As a result he
renounced all thought of a vocation in the Church of England, and devoted
himself entirely to the work of the Theosophical Society, becoming an
enthusiastic lecturer. He had a sufficient private income from the family
business to live independently, and moved to London where he served as
General Secretary of the Theosophical Society in England from 1911-1913,
and as General Secretary of the European Federation of the Society from
1913-1921.

 By 1910 Wedgwood had joined  the Co-Freemasonic Order, and by 1911 had
risen to become Very Illustrious Supreme Secretary 33' of the British
Federation of International Co-Freemasonry. Prior to his involvement in
Co-Freemasonry, Wedgwood had made contact with leading figures within the
fringes of Freemasonry, and met John Yarker (1833-1913) who, on December
22, 1910, made him an honorary member of the Royal Order of the Sat
B'hai. Through Yarker's influence, in 1912 Wedgwood also became a member
of the Ordo Templi Orientis.  In 1914 Wedgwood received from Yarker the
thirty-third degree of Sovereign Grand Inspector-General of the Ancient
and Accepted Scottish Rite (Cerneau), the ninety-fifth degree of Prince
Patriarch Grand Conservator of the Rite of Memphis and the ninetieth
degree of Absolute Grand Sovereign of the Rite of Misraim

In 1912, with the help of Mrs Marie Russak (1865-1937), Wedgwood founded
the Temple of the Rosy Cross.

Wedgwood had intended to obtain episcopal consecration from some source -
presumably one of the episcopi vagantes, or "wandering bishops" - for use
within an occult group, which would in fact be a continuation of the
Temple of the Rosy Cross. Wedgwood had contacted Archbishop Arnold Harris
Mathew (1852-1919), head of a tiny independent church, the Old Catholic
Church in Great Britain, in 1913. Wedgwood was ordained Priest on July
22nd, 1913 in Wedgwood's private oratory in his apartment at 1 Upper
Woburn Place, London, almost opposite the headquarters of the TS.  On
August 6, 1915, Mathew issued a decree requiring that any clergy or laity
who were members of either the TS or the OSE must resign from them.
Wedgwood and many other Theosophists instead resigned from Mathew?s
church.

Wedgwood was consecrated as a bishop on February 13, 1916, in the
Co-Masonic Temple, London by Frederick Willoughby was assisted by Robert
King and Rupert Gauntlett. On July 22, 1916, Wedgwood privately
consecrated Leadbeater to the episcopate in Sydney, and claimed that:
"There were mighty influences present: several Masters came, the Lord
Maitreya, and the Lord Buddha, and the Star shone out. When he said his
first Mass afterwards, four Masters came in, and the Master Jesus stood
there the whole time."

Wedgood had been elected as Presiding Bishop of the church, which
eventually became the Liberal Catholic Church, formed after the separation
from Mathew. Following allegations of homosexual activity Wedgwood
resigned as Presiding Bishop and withdrew from Co-Masonic and Theosophical
work in 1923, and was succeeded by Leadbeater as Presiding Bishop.
Wedgwood lived in France and completed a doctorate at the Sorbonne,
researching the production of sound in organ pipes. He returned to church,
Masonic and Theosophical activities after a few years: some details can be
found in Mary Lutyen?s books on Krishnamurti. A centre was established for
Wedgwood at Huizen in Holland, but as his health failed he moved to Tekels
Park in England, where he died 1951. Wedgwood had contracted syphilis as a
result of his homosexual activities (but refused to seek treatment), and
had acquired an addiction to cocaine, both of which caused physical and
psychiatric deterioration in his latter years.

Dr Gregory Tillett